Author: JanetSmyrski

The WagonBurners Two-SpiritConvention is annual holiday dinner and show organized by the Greater Vancouver Native Cultural Society (GVNCS). The 2017 convention, titled “Winter Masquerade,” is scheduled for December 17, at the Penthouse on Seymour Street in Vancouver (GVNCS Two-Spirit, 2017; follow this link to RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/126504628059982/).

The GVNCS Two-Spirit society was established 40 years ago to accept and represent people who identify as Two-Spirit (Takeuchi, 2016). One result of American and Canadian colonialism was the denunciation of the Two-Spirit identity, as well as the establishment of the binary gender system (Walters, Evans-Campbell, Simoni, Ronquillo, & Bhuyan, 2006). This binary gender system exists today due to the Western emphasis on gender differences based on biology (Blackwood, 1997).

For Chief Al Houston (Silver Coyote), the WagonBurners Two-Spirit Convention is “more or less an Aboriginal Two-Spirit society taking care of [their] own community, which is important because [they] feel they aren’t getting that attention from the community at large” (quoted in Lewis, 2013). Indeed, in 2004, 38% of Two-Spirit youth sampled in British Columbia aged 24 and younger stated that they do not feel accepted in their community (Urban Native Youth Association, 2004). Given the historical responsibility of Two-Spirit people to serve their community as caregivers (Miranda, 2010; Walters et al., 2006), the fact that such a high percentage of Two-Spirit youth do not feel accepted by their communities can result in a high degree of anxiety and life dissatisfaction. Furthermore, Two-Spirit people can experience dysphoria and displacement from their cultures as a result of being forced into, or forced to choose, between one of only two genders in the binary gender system that exists in colonized Canada (Miranda, 2010).

Two-Spirited people’s desire to belong in their Native communities might, to some Queer theorists, be a process of homonormativity. However, the Two-Spirit identity has more to do with gender than sexuality, and Two-Spirit people yearning to be integrated members of their Native community, as they traditionally are, is actually an opposition of assimilation, not an adoption of homonormativity (Driskill, 2010).

Thus, Driskill (2010) calls for the intertwining of Native studies and Queer studies: A union that works beyond intersectionality and ventures into a stronger analysis, called Two-Spirit critiques. Unlike current Queer studies that un-see Native people, or mention them along with all other people of colour, Two-Spirit critiques are embedded in Native historic and political dimensions. Also, these critiques “are created and maintained through the activist and artistic resistance of Two-Spirit people” (Driskill, 2010, p. 81), such as the work done by the GVNCS Two-Spirit organization and the WagonBurners events. These activisms work to repair the relationship Two-Spirit people have with their Native communities, and Two-Spirit critiques can gain vast knowledge from the work done by these activist organizations.

 

References

Agathangelou, A. M., Bassichis, M. D., & Spira, T. L. (2008). Intimate investments: Homonormativity, global lockdown, and the seductions of empire. Radical History Review, 100, 120-43.

Anguksuar/Richard LaFortune. (1997). A postcolonial colonial perspective on western [mis]conceptions of the cosmos and the restoration of Indigenous taxonomies. Two-Spirit people: Native American gender identity, sexuality, and spirituality. S. Jacobs, W. Thomas, & S. Lang (Eds.). Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Blackwood, E. (1997). Native American genders and sexualities: Beyond anthropological models and misrepresentations. Two-Spirit people: Native American gender identity, sexuality, and spirituality. S. Jacobs, W. Thomas, & S. Lang (Eds.) Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Davidson, M. R. (2012). A Nurse’s Guide to Women’s Mental Health. New York: Springer Publishing Company.

Driskill, Q-L. (2010). Doubleweaving Two-Spirit critiques: Building alliances between Native and Queer studies. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 16(1-2), 69-92.

Duggan, L. (2002). The new homonormativity: The sexuality politics of neoliberalism. Materializing democracy: Toward a revitalized cultural politics. R. Castronovo & D. Nelson (Eds.). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

GVNCS Two-Spirit. (2017). In Facebook. Retrieved November 5, 2017 from https://www.facebook.com/events/126504628059982/

Lewis, S. (2013, Dec 10). Annual Two-Spirit dinner provides a sense of family, Chief says. Xtra. Retrieved November 5, 2017, from https://www.dailyxtra.com/annual-two-spirit-dinner-provides-a-sense-of-family-chief-says-56319

Miranda, D. (2010). Extermination of the Joyas: Gendercide in Spanish California. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 16(1-2), 153-84.

Takeuchi, C. (2016, July 28). From South Asian to Jewish Canadians: Metro Vancouver’s LGBT cultural organizations and groups. Straight. Retrieved November 5, 2017, from https://www.straight.com/life/745416/south-asian-jewish-canadians-metro-vancouvers-lgbt-cultural-organizations-and-groups

Urban Native Youth Association. (2004). Two-Spirit youth speak out! Analysis of the needs assessment tool. Retrieved November 5, 2017, from http://www.unya.bc.ca/downloads/glbtq-twospirit-final-report.pdf

Walters, K. L., Evans-Campbell, T., Simoni, J. M., Ronquillo, T., & Bhuyan, R. (2006). “My spirit in my heart”: Identity experiences and challenges among American Indian Two-Spirit women. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 10(1-2), 125-49.

 

On August 7, 2017, the 2SQTILGBIPOC Alliance and the Anti-Oppression Network hosted the 2SQTILGBIPOC Pride Celebration in the Carnegie Community Centre Theater Room, located in the Downtown Eastside area of Vancouver. This celebration was organized as an alternative Pride event for Two-Spirit, Queer, Transgender, Intersex, Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual people of colour (2sqtilgbipoc Alliance, 2017), and for people who do not feel safe attending the Vancouver Pride Parade (due to police involvement; Newton, 2017). One attendee of the celebration, vanessa bui, pointed to the overrepresentation of white performers and participants at other Pride celebrations as part of their motivation to attend an alternative, more inclusive Pride event (in Newton, 2017).

Bailey (2014) theorizes space as a “cultural production” (p. 490), and people use behaviour to transform and reconfigure space. If Pride Parades actively create Queer streets rather than merely turn streets Queer (Bell and Valentine, 1995, in Begonya, 2009), then the overrepresentation of white people described by bui, as well as the police attendance at the Vancouver Pride Parade, can be examples of presence and behaviour that creates a space that socially excluded group members feel uncomfortable or unsafe in. These theories can be utilized to explain why groups, such as the 2SQTILGBIPOC Alliance and the Anti-Oppression Network, consider the need for celebrations to “reclaim Pride” (2sqtilgbipoc Alliance, 2017).

Furthermore, according to research and theory by Greensmith and Giwa (2013), Canadian Pride celebrations between 2009 and 2012 have neglected to acknowledge the diversity of Queer Canadians, and instead focus on White and colonized Queer activism, which “reinforce and normalize homonormativity” (p. 133). While heteronormativity is the normalization of heterosexuality in human society and its members (Warner, 1991), homonormativity is the creation of a “depoliticized gay culture anchored in domesticity and consumption” (Duggan, 2002, p. 179, in Greensmith & Giwa, 2013). Homonormativity is vital for the development of homonationalism (Puar, 2007), which reinforces white normativity and justifies violence against and exclusion of racialized and Indigenous people. Both homonormativity and homonationalism are why some Queer activist groups refused to participate in the 2017 Vancouver Pride Parade, such as Salaam, a Queer Muslim support group (Bedry, 2017).

For Imtiaz Popat, the founder of Salaam and a co-organizer of the 2SQTILGBIPOC Pride Celebration, locating the 2SQTILGBIPOC Pride event in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside is significant:

Because people [in the Downtown Eastside]–Two-Spirit, people who live down here, who are people of colour–don’t fit into the West End. They don’t fit into the East Side either, so [it’s important] to hold a space here as a safer space. (quoted in Newton, 2017)

Bailey (2014) argues that people use and alter space to escape “spatial marginalization,” a term that describes the supposedly public space that marginalized groups members are commonly refrained from accessing. For 2SQTILGBIPOC  people, the 2SQTILGBIPOC Pride Celebration transformed the Carnegie Community Centre Theater Room to escape the spatial marginalization usually experienced in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

 

References

2sqtilgbipoc Alliance. (2017). In Facebook. Retrieved November 5, 2017, from https://www.facebook.com/events/678129855707535/

Agathangelou, A. M., Bassichis, M. D., & Spira, T. L. (2008). Intimate investments: Homonormativity, global lockdown, and the seductions of empire. Radical History Review, 100, 120-43.

Anguksuar/Richard LaFortune. (1997). A postcolonial colonial perspective on western [mis]conceptions of the cosmos and the restoration of Indigenous taxonomies. Two-Spirit people: Native American gender identity, sexuality, and spirituality. S. Jacobs, W. Thomas, & S. Lang (Eds.). Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Bailey, M. M. (2014). Engendering space: Ballroom culture and the spatial practice of possibility in Detroit. Gender, Place & Culture, 21(4), 489-507.

Bedry, D. (2017, May 18). Uniformed police will march in Vancouver’s Pride parade. Xtra. Retrieved November 7, 2017, from https://www.dailyxtra.com/uniformed-police-will-march-in-vancouvers-pride-parade-73525

Begonya, E. (2009). Identities, sexualities, and commemorations: Pride parades, public space and sexual dissidence. Anthropological Notebooks, 15(2), 15-33.

Bell, D. & Valentine, G. (1995). Mapping desire. New York: Routledge.

Driskill, Q-L. (2010). Doubleweaving Two-Spirit critiques: Building alliances between Native and Queer studies. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 16(1-2), 69-92.

Duggan, L. (2002). The new homonormativity: The sexuality politics of neoliberalism. Materializing democracy: Toward a revitalized cultural politics. R. Castronovo & D. Nelson (Eds.). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Greensmith, C. & Giwa, S. (2013). Challenging settler colonialism in contemporary Queer politics: Settler homonationalism, pride Toronto, and Two-Spirit subjectivities. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 37(2), 129-48.

Newton, R. (2017, Aug 8). How this Pride event celebrated Queer and Trans people of colour in Vancouver. Xtra. Retrieved November 5, 2017, from https://www.dailyxtra.com/how-this-pride-event-celebrated-queer-and-trans-people-of-colour-in-vancouver-77796

Puar, J. K. (2007). Terrorist assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer times. I. Grewal, C. Kaplan, & R. Wiegman (Eds.). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Warner, M. (1991). Introduction: Fear of a Queer planet. Social Text, 29, 3-17.