“Our Elders tell us of people who were gifted among all beings because they carried two spirits—that of male and female” (dancingtoeaglespiritsociety.org, 2008). Within the span of queer and trans theorizing, the perspectives of people of colour are often times sidelined. Yet, within queer and trans of colour theorizing itself, Indigenous folks also experience being sidelined—mainly because the concept of Two-Spirit stands contrary to the idea of North America being ‘postcolonial.’ As a response to the intersection of Indigeneity and queer, Two-Spirit bodies employ agencies that have resulted in the formation of a variety of groups and organizations.
Because of the socio-economic predicaments and traumas the Two-Spirit community faces on a daily basis, such as the discrimination and criminalization of sex work, the Dancing to Eagle Spirit Society was created by founder Sandra Laframboise as a local resource group in Vancouver in the early 1990s. This was the time period where the term “Two-Spirit” began to be recognized by tribal nations across (so-called) North America, in accordance with the quote used above. It was a particularly troubling time in Vancouver, especially as Downtown Eastside’s public health epidemics reached crisis levels. Its key mission is “dedicated to the healing and empowerment of aboriginal and non-aboriginal two-spirit individuals, their friends, and their allies” (dancingtoeaglespiritsociety.org, 2008). The organization utilizes traditional Indigenous lessons and rituals as a means to cultivate an emotional and spiritual wellbeing for its members. Some of these traditions include: sweat lodge ceremonies, monthly smudging circles with other groups, annual “vision quests/spiritual fasts,” as well as the Eagle’s Nest Market, where Indigenous folks can sell regalia, art, and medicines.
Groups like the Dancing to Eagle Spirit Society exist, in part, as an ongoing reworking of both the cis/heteronormative leadership of Indigenous rights groups and the homonormative/settler colonial leadership of LGBTQ rights groups. Two-Spirit scholar Qwo-Li Driskill, as well as other Indigenous scholars, emphasize that Two-Spirit narratives pose as alternatives to the systems of heteropatriarchy and heteronormativity into which mainstream LGBTQ groups seek assimilation (Driskill et. al, 2011, 33). These systems have historically been utilized to oppress and eradicate non-normative sexual and gender identities, throughout the span of the settler colonial project. Settler colonialism necessitates the disappearance of Indigenous bodies to pave the way for land to be to “inherited,” and bodies that are queered via the Eurocentric gaze demand that disappearance even more so (Driskill et. al, 2011, 36).
Reconciling these oppressions synthesizes into ways that traditional storytelling and rituals, along with the dimensions of the Two-Spirit subject itself, can produce novel ways of imagining identity and belonging, as well as organizing as a whole. Often times religions or spiritualities are demonized by LGBTQ groups because of the traditions they made pertain towards queer and trans bodies, but the Dancing to Eagle Spirit Society shows that not all belief systems function that way.
dancingtoeaglespiritsociety.org. (2008). Retrieved November 08, 2017
Driskill, Q., et. al (2011). Queer indigenous studies critical interventions in theory, politics, and literature. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.