“Shamans frequently encounter androgynous and bisexual beings and spirit guides in their initiation journeys. They play a key role in the drastic reorganization of categories that shatters the shaman’s old perception of reality and opens him or her to the multiple dimensions of existence. Along these same lines, gender ambiguity frequently characterizes many shamans who themselves were gay or lesbian. Homosexuality and androgyny create a liminal status that helps to legitimize the shaman as interpreter and go-between on both social and spiritual levels.

In Siberia a gay male shaman was called “a soft man being.” In native American communities, a young man who showed an interest in women’s activities, crossdressed, and adopted feminine behaviour often became a spiritual leader or healer, his decision reinforced by encouraging dreams and vision quests. It was assumed the spirits had touched him with some special magic, power, or wisdom that would be valuable for the community. This berdache tradition among American Indians (after the term used by French explorers, meaning someone who blends the masculine and feminine) is currently being restored by contemporary gay men in the Native American community to the honored and valued position it held before Christian missionaries discredited it. 

A similar custom among lesbians in tribal societies encouraged young women, who felt called by the spirit, to crossdress, become hunters or warriors, and adopt masculine behavior. They too became exceptionally valued spiritual members of their people. Lesbian shamans have been found from the Arctic Circle to the Amazon, indicating the widespread nature of this custom that recognizes in people who can bridge the social worlds of men and women a talent that renders them interpreters and go-betweens for the Otherworld as well. The strong female warrior and hunter is found in early Celtic societies. Although not always lesbians, powerful Celtic women trained male heroes in the arts of war and the hunt.”

From Fire in the Head: Shamanism and the Celtic Spirit, by Tom Cowan.