Pride as a Movement within Indigenous & Queer Community

In mid-May, I was honored by the Transgender Law Center to give a grounding at their first conference here in Bde Ota Otunwe (Minneapolis) and knew immediately who to ask to join me. Sharon Day, a Two Spirit elder in Mnisota, and Candi Brings Plenty, the founder of the Two Spirit Nation camp, rendered a song and a poem for the assembled room of Transgender, Queer, and Nonbinary leaders from across the country to ground them in whose land they came to visit.

For my part, I gave a brief history of this place from Bdote, to Owamni Yomni, to Franklin Avenue, and how Two Spirit/Queer and Indigenous people have been at the forefront of fighting against colonization, settlement, police violence, and federal occupation. I reminded folks that Two Spirit, Winkte, Nádleehí, Queer, Trans, Nonbinary, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual Indigenous people have always existed and always will.

But more than the cognitive dissonance of reminding others that Queer Indigenous folks have led since time immemorial, it was an opportunity to welcome guests to this sacred place.

When we talk about solidarity, so much of the effort is put on folks on the margins to make themselves understandable to the mainstream. For Queer/Trans/Nonbinary and Indigenous people, we know that so much of our history and movement is based in protecting our people while simultaneously strategizing survival. For many of us, the idea of trying to make that existence understandable for others is more work than most of have the energy to do. In these moments when we can find commonality among our communities on the margins, however, is when we build power and solidarity in honest and open ways.

In most Indigenous cultures, we have a healthy and central respect for wisdom and age that keeps us grounded in care for the future as well as the present.

For many of us in the Queer community, age and wisdom might not always be the highest value when we’re trying to survive from day to day, or build power from one election cycle and legislative session to the next. We might be tempted to stay rooted in the immediacy of right now that we never have time to look back and learn in order to cast a vision for the future.

Conversely, in Indigenous community, so much of what we face gets separated among us based on our land base or tribal identity that we often have trouble relating to one another.

Pride is one value that’s universal to both Queer and Indigenous communities. Whether it’s the evening grand entry at a powwow or the runway of the ballroom, how we express pride in ourselves, our friends, our families (by blood or by choice), and our communities is always a significant affair. How often have both people heard from white, straight, cisgender, or Christian folks that we’re too loud, too raucous, too too much? It’s because the shine of our pride blinds them with jealousy.

For me personally, June is always a monthlong celebration that culminates at the end. June 19—Juneteenth—marks the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation that freed enslaved Black people in Texas, June 24 is my birthday (as well as the Feast Day of John the Baptist), June 25-26 is Lakota Victory Day that commemorates the Battle of Greasy Grass (Little Bighorn), and June 28 is the first day of the Stonewall Uprising where 2SLGBTQ+ patrons of the Stonewall Inn rose up against police intimidation and brutality in New York City. So many of my beloveds and communities mark June as a time of liberation and victory for our people.

And for that, we can all be proud.