Medicine Keepers
This June we want to hold space for both Indigenous Peoples month and Pride season, which fall in the same month in Canada. Colonial institutions were designed to assimilate and erase Indigenous two-spirit, queer and LGBTQIA folks, and this legacy still contributes to their marginalization today in queer spaces and wider society. Educating ourselves about the history of Two-spirit identity and the role that Two-spirit people have played in their communities is one way we can work towards healing the rift that has resulted from institutionalized violence and white supremacy.
Two-spirit is a translation of niizh manidoowag in the Anishinaabe language, and is a modern umbrella term that is used by some to describe sexual, gender and/or spiritual identity. To explain using western identifiers, it can encapsulate lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender, transsexual, or gender-fluid folks. The term can describe someone containing both feminine and masculine spirits, who is able to observe life through the eyes of both genders.
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“…it helps to locate me within the many genders that exist in the world as being somebody that is not a woman and not a man, but someone that is sacred and that deserves a place within the circle and deserves to be respected as a sacred being among all other beings in Creation." - Benny Michaud
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While these individuals were part of Indigenous societies for centuries prior, the term is a modern one, coined in 1990 at the third International Gathering of American Indian and First Nations Gays and Lesbians in Manitoba, by queer Kanyen’kehá:ka writer Myra Laramee. This new language contributed to global queer liberation by connecting the modern settler LGBTQIA movement with Indigenous traditions, histories and worldviews.
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“during June, Pride Month and National Indigenous History Month, I am left thinking of how what we now call queerness within Indigeneity supersedes; & that the history of queerness on turtle island arcs so much further beyond Stonewall and 1492. As we honour and remember our queer.” – Joshua Whitehead @Jwhitehead204
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Traditionally, two-spirit people fulfilled diverse roles within Indigenous communities, such as caretakers of the vulnerable, healers, matchmakers, treaty negotiators and artists. The enforcement of christian concepts of gender, perpetuated within institutional spaces like residential schools, tragically stripped away the cultural identity of those who existed outside of the gender binary.
This erasure is one aspect of the harm that reproductive health care institutions have caused to Indigenous communities, and as abortion providers we know we have a responsibility to take real, meaningful action towards mending these wounds. We are continuing to evaluate how we can show up more thoughtfully for Indigenous clients by making our space feel inclusive of their experiences. We are currently in the process of sourcing art created by Indigenous creators and consulting on the appropriate words of welcome that we can display to reflect local Indigenous communities. We offer the option of a smudging for Indigenous clients, providing materials to empower individuals to carry out their own ceremony in our space. Clients also have the option to take pregnancy remains home, a practice that can be ceremonially important and bring comfort to some.
In this process, we have learned from and continue to work with incredible Indigenous-led, pro-choice health care organizations like Call Auntie Clinic and the Fireweed Project, which are committed to strengthening urban Indigenous communities and supporting Indigenous women, trans, non-binary, two-spirit, and LGBTQIA+ folks in accessing reproductive health care.
We see a potential link between the symbol of the orange shirt, established in 2013 by residential school survivor Phyllis Jack Webstad, to represent all that had been stolen from Indigenous peoples, and the orange stripe on the original pride flag. In the flag, designed by artist Gilbert Baker in 1979, orange was chosen to signify healing, a process that acknowledges pain while moving towards truth.
True healing can only take place through a willingness to understand and a commitment to work towards a better future. We hope that this June we can all reflect and hold space for intersecting identities while stepping forward into more inclusive practices all year round. Click here to read more about our commitments as a clinic, in our statements on trans inclusion and Indigenous Health.