Montana Two Spirit Society moves forward with pride

The organization hosted educational events amid a statewide flurry of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment

In the face of anti-LGBTQ+ laws and sentiment throughout the state, the Montana Two Spirit Society moved ahead with contributing educational activities during the Missoula Pride event earlier this month, which included a parade, queer trivia night, variety show-style performances and an educational presentation on Indigenous two spirit history.

The Western Montana Community Center, who organized the pride event, made sure to also include safety huddles with event planners and media and took steps in collaborating with Missoula Police Department to ensure that safety and security was a top priority.

Devin Carpenter, one of the co- project directors of Missoula’s Pride weekend, spoke with ICT and said how this years celebrations differed from 2022 with roughly 5,000 more participants in attendance then last year’s 10,000. 

In addition, Carpenter also shared that the collaboration with the police department was a first for this year’s events. He shared that last year, organizers chose to hire a private security company while this year they worked with both the company and MPD. 

“Going into this year we really were trying to kind of follow the lead of the community and what the community wanted, but also knowing that we had increasing concerns about just various things going on in the country,” Carpenter said.

State legislators approved bills targeting transgender youth and the LGBTQ+ communities earlier in the year. In addition, the Legislature’s lone transgender lawmaker was officially silenced and shut out of the House floor by her colleagues.

Pride events have been subjected to counter protests. Bozeman’s pride celebrations were interrupted by a ground of white supremacists chanting anti-LGBTQ+ words and phrases in May, while an educational two spirit reading hour scheduled earlier in June at Butte-Silver Bow Public Library was abruptly canceled.

The Missoula event, “Two Spirit History: Past and Present,” was an opportunity to welcome and educate the public into a conversation on the Indigenous perspective on the LGBTQ+ identity.

The Montana Two Spirit Society, established in 1996, was founded in efforts to create a safe environment and community for Indigenous LGBTQ+ individuals. “We promote health, wellness and spiritual well being by sharing our traditions with one another, healing past wounds, and learning new ways to combat disease,” states the group’s mission statement on its website.

The presentation kicked off with members of the Two Spirit society sharing personal stories on their journeys to their identities and dove into the term “Two Spirit” itself, with discussions clarifying the distinct and unique definitions it means within different tribal nations.

“Two-Spirit is a person who is Indigenous, but also a person who may identify as LGBTQ. I often say it’s a self-identifying term,” said Elton Naswood, Navajo, who is an advocate and member of the Southwestern Indigenous Women’s Coalition’s 2SLGBTQ+ Advisory Council who spoke at the society’s Two Spirit panel on Friday. “Only because when we utilized that term and we translated into our own specific tribal communities, it could mean something very different.”

The history of the coined term “Two Spirit” was a highlighted topic at the event.

“There are over 574 federally recognized types in this country. So to have a term that represents all of us can be a challenge as well,” said Naswood during the presentation. He explained how the term came to be, sharing that elders came together at the third international Two Spirit gathering and created the term, which was derived from the Anishinaabe language.

By this definition, the Two Spirit translation means, “to have a feminine spirit and a masculine spirit embodied in one’s spirit or one’s identity,” continued Naswood. “It has different meanings in different tribal communities.”

One message significant to the Two Spirit Society was to acknowledge that two spirit people have always been in Indigenous communities throughout history and to emphasize what it meant for each tribal nation to have their own term or definitions.

“For me that’s validation,” Naswood said. “Language is important and if we have a term in our tribal communities that helps us to understand that we’ve been here, we’ve always been a part of the community. It’s that type of validation.”

Another presenter, Raven Heavy Runner, Blackfeet, said that not everybody utilizes the term because of translation issues but encourages tribes to use their own language to reinforce traditional inclusive ways.

“So people have their own terms already, they’re like, ‘Heck, you know, this is a really wonderful idea. I understand the concept behind it,’” Heavy Runner said. “But I think that it’s important that we use our own.”

Leo Thompson, a member of the Two Spirit society’s board, also spoke and wanted to reinforce the ideology behind the two spirit term on gender. Thompson said they have heard “two spirit” and ”trans” used interchangeably, which is a common misconception. As far as their understanding, there wasn’t a traditional term for transgender for their tribe.

“That wasn’t always something that had its own term or the different genders in our tribe weren’t necessarily defined by that,” Thompson said. “You have some tribes where people that were born female that identified as male had their own terms, but in my tribe you didn’t. You would just go with the group that you felt comfortable with. We have three genders and I identify as the third gender, ‘moreakame’ and in my community. That role is very specifically a spiritual and healing role.”

Steven Barrios, Blackfeet, is one of the co-founders of the Montana Two Spirit Society and said religion was a factor in the loss of traditional customs, including the traditional beliefs regarding two spirit people.

“We weren’t given a choice of what religion we wanted. It was forced upon us and our own way of leading our ceremonies and stuff were taken away from us and with that came the loss of our two spirit ceremonies too,” Barrios said. “So what we’re doing is, we’re reclaiming it. Our own two-spiritedness back in our ceremonies.”

Dateline:

MISSOULA, Mont.