What does it mean to be queer? I left home when I was 18, following the death of my mother, in order to pursue a dream of storytelling. A genderfluid redhead on the farm, I always felt a connection with nature yet a disconnect from the land. Whatsmore, I always felt a queerness to my place in the society. I used the stars as guiders of wisdom, of direction. I would shout into the dark blue vastness the questions that haunted me, such as: “Why was I born into this family? Why this land? Why this time?” These primordial questions stuck with me — I thought these questions were what made me different in the abnormal sense, until I realized that my ability to question things outside of my self allowed for open connection with the land and beings around me.

The connections led me to queerness: to me this means an ongoing pursuit of the truth, a dismantling of harmful systems that oppress, and a remaking of power networks that facilitate freedoms. Throughout time, I have had the privilege of exploring, reflecting, and acting upon my queerness from community mobilization, to lobbying policymakers, to being in healing dialogues at dinner tables. My role as a founder and leader of The Global Center, a non-governmental organization that transforms the world through education for LGBTI+ youth globally, formalized my commitment to using education as a transformative praxis through queerness.

However, while I have spent years in social movements spaces, I admittedly often heard about Indigenous rights movements, but never engaged fully through them. I never felt I had the opportunity to listen and understand various indigenous knowledges, cosmologies, and metaphysics at the local rooted level rather than only on the global stage. Thankfully, in returning to Turtle Island, I have been privileged enough to enroll in the Indigenous Education class at the College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota. Through numerous sessions, week after week, the time was given to listen, read, and reflect. This process led me to discover that there were numerous connections between indigeneity and queerness. I want to be clear as well though that there are important delineations and distinctions in these different ways, and I would never want to co-opt or conflate movements. Rather, my goal is to expand and notice intersections between these movements and how we can learn with each other. In this article, I would like to explore with you how the connections are being understood and made, at least through my positionality as a white male-presenting person being a part of a settle colonial legacy. In my goal to dismantle oppressive systems and be in true allyship with indigenous persons, I would like to use this space to explore possibilities of achieving (un)paralleled self-determination.

Metaphysics: The very foundation of my being is changing. According to Deloria & Wildcat (2001), the essence of indigenous metaphysics is, “The realization that the world, and all its possible experiences, constituted a social reality, a fabric of life in which everything had the possibility of intimate knowing relationships because, ultimately, everything was related” (p. 2). As a queer person, I have always felt like my metaphysics did not ‘make sense’. I felt that the norms, patterns, and conditions for being were socially constructed, and that my ways of being were not socially acceptable. Furthermore, when I realized that I did not want the traditional life aspiring towards the American dream — taking a wife, having children, buying a home, and retiring — it displaced my place in myself, society, and which land I would live to forge an acceptable path. The “fallacy of misplaced concreteness” (p. 2) went against what my loved ones viewed as stability.

I aim to vibrate emotional resonance through my being. I have been wondering what led me from place to place on my pathmap; the best answer I have now is values. As I hold my values of connection, embodiment, humility, transformation, and wisdom, I listen and learn from indigenous philosophies in how the “time-honored values of respect, reciprocity, and cooperation are conducive to adaptation, survival, and harmony” (Kawagley & Barnhardt, 1998). Up until now, I always thought of social movements as relationships on a human-to-human basis. I have been pleasantly disrupted through learning about the anthropocene (Silova, 2021) and audacity of human-centered thinking. I did not know it was possible or legitimate to think outside of these conceptualizations, and therefore are now reconceptualizing my relationships. I am beginning to embrace the spiritual connection through relationality to my Place and how I walk in this world. I have been enlivened to what I have always sensed around me but never felt the legitimacy to claim as true: listening to the language of trees, being swept away by the character of the wind, learning from the wisdom of the fractaled water, and soaking in the voice of the screaming sun. These ethereal aspects of how I relate to beings have changed in that it goes against my teaching of Western metaphysics as the only option, the only Reality. I am only waking up now to the depth of these relationships. However, it has led me to walk more softly, consume with reciprocity, and give generous care. It has allowed me to integrate the flow I learned in Thailand into the American way of life. I have learned that connection to spirit is what gives me and my quibblings strength.

Self-Determination: I’m learning new conceptualizations and possibilities of freedom. Alongside new ways of being, I am learning the various forms of injustices and how they distinctly play out: that of epistemic injustice, hermeneutical injustice, and testimonial injustice. As Bang, et al. (2014) say, “While the denial or erasure of Indigenous points of reference may not be intentional, educational environments that uncritically mobilize them and leave settler-colonial interpretations silenced are complicit in this erasure.” They continue with discussing how the binary system of settler versus native and other harmful binaries like male versus female are used as tools for domination. I was very surprised to learn that the conceptualization of two-spirit people as such stems from their relationality and contributions of how they participated in the community. Thus, being two-spirit is a sexual, gender, and spiritual identity. I was further shocked to learn that not only was it embraced, but two-spirit people were considered sacred (Simpson, 2017). As I reflect on the lack of sovereignty I had over governing my own safety, my identity, the opportunity to name myself and my experiences of Truth, this divinity is a teaching I will hold close to my heart and store within my gut.

Reclamation! This process has also allowed me to reflect on the goals of various social movements. For example, according to Tuhiwai Smith (2021) the aims of indigenous research are the “survival of peoples, cultures, and languages; the struggle to become self-determining, the need to take back control of our destinies.” Similar themes to queer social movements arise in indigenous social movements, including cultural survival, self-determination, healing, restoration, and social justice. However, these themes manifest differently in queer spaces as the framing is focused on liberation, emancipation, pride, and freedom. A big place of difference in social movements is the role of Land and Family. These two are central to indigenous social movements whereas there feels like a prior rejection of these two within queer movements — a process beginning to turn back to the Family and the Land within the mainstream queer social movement broadly due to patriarchy’s influence over the movement and the weaponization of the Family by the State which has often left queer people homeless or neglected. Connecting collective continuance with a queer utopia/a queer survival may be a way forward.

Movements: What are ways we resurge, continue, and transform? I have recently been exposed to this idea of collective continuance. As Whyte (2018) states, “Some of the gifts of Indigenous traditions are entire systems of how societies can be organized to be most responsive to different types of change — whether the changes are extreme weather events, intergenerational traumas, seasonal cycles, or military invasions by other societies.” These ideas feel the most new to me — and right now I am just listening and processing. They go onto state that collective continuance is all built on moral relationships and involves systems of trust that are mutual and bound together with human and non-human entities (Whyte, 2018). Moreover, trust is a foundational element to life and being of community. Transmotion, migration, seasonality, and transformation are also core values. Community resurgence connects with cultural resilience theory insothat its application is that “Indigenous peoples have always employed cultural resilience in everyday living, with one watchful eye on the future and another that has stayed on our past” (Drywater-Whitekiller & Corntassel, 2022). These are fascinating ideas that I am still processing what that power and place of that would mean. I am questioning how building family and relationality connects with my body reclamation work. I am still thinking about the role I play within the many communities I am a part. At this point, I am looking to foster cosmic connections, to fulfill transformative relationships. I am here to form a circle within my heart and with my community.

Wisdoms: How do we creates spaces of learning and knowing? I have been learning to question how we construct spaces and what even constitute a space for learning, knowing, and growing. Desperate to generate new possibilities through education, I listen as Bang, et al. (2014) states, “The development of liberatory learning environments, we believe, will hinge on the ways in which constructs of culture and land, as well as the epistemic and ontological stances embedded therein, are conceptualized, encoded and facilitated.” For me, I feel I have been displaced from the land, from my family, because I am queer in order to survive. I mean — we are at a point in American society where the argument today is whether we should teach or ban the teaching of LGBTI+ topics. How to survive is not included in the curriculum. Even when these are topics are included, it is through conservative framings of histories that meditate risk and pacify disobedience. It is a presentation of American assimilation as a long arc of incrementalist social justice.

So then, what would it mean to reshape power networks? As it takes so long for queer people to access knowledge, let alone understand and be with wisdom, I aspire to question what it would mean to design spaces of epistemic openness nourishing transformative agency (Tzou et al., 2019). Is it possible to reconstruct the spaces, knowledges, and truths of queerness and our vast history? I think yes, because every child deserves to know they are sacred. Every child should learn diverse cultures horizontally — we can learn about a multiplicity of cultures without the supremacy of One. We can treat schools as gatherings instead of classrooms, communities instead of modalities of state-sponsored socialization. We should discern where there is overlap in culture and where things are not translatable. We, as a species, can hold that complexity.

What does it mean to be queer? Through this course, I have had the privilege to listen to two-spirit stories. I now see it as a responsibility to share and shape emergent futures. Through this article, I have attempted to share what I am learning, how I am being disrupted, and how I am renavigating my metaphysics through world, the sky world, and the spirit world. While I will continue asking this eternal question, I have learned that my queerness is my service to the world. Queerness is a commitment to the expansion of wisdom and movement. Queerness means knowing you are sacred in your power and place. It is being in relation to my entire ecological Family. Being queer means that I am in constant process and pursuit of truth. And truths, both hard and soft, are what provides possibilities for new ways of living.

References

Bang, M., Curley, L., Kessel, A., Marin, A., Suzokovich III, E. S., & Strack, G. (2014). Muskrat theories, tobacco in the streets, and living Chicago as Indigenous land. Environmental Education Research, 20(1), 37–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2013.865113

Deloria Jr., V., & Wildcat, D. R. (2001). Power and Place: Indian Education in America (First Printing, Underlining edition), Fulcrum Publishing.

Drywater-Whitekiller, V., & Corntassel, J. (2022). Learning on and from the Land: Indigenous perspectives on university Land-based learning pedagogies. In C. Pewewardy, A. Lees, & R. Z. Minthorn (Eds.), Unsettling Settler-Colonial Education: The Transformational Indigenous Praxis Model. Teachers College Press.

Kawagley, A. O., & Barnhardt, R. (1998). Education Indigenous to Place: Western Science Meets Native Reality. In Education Indigenous to Place: Western Science Meets Native Reality. https://uaf.edu/ankn/publications/collective-works-of-angay/Education-Indigenous1819F2.pdf

Goltz, D. (2022). Queer Temporalities. Communication. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.1182

Simpson, L. B. (2017). Indigenous queer normativity. As we have always done: Indigenous freedom through radical resistance. University of Minnesota Press.

Tuhiwai Smith, L. (2021). Twenty-five Indigenous Projects. In Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (pp. 163–185). London: Zed Books. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350225282.0013

Tzou, C., Meixi, Suárez, E., Bell, P., LaBonte, D., Starks, E., & Bang, M. (2019). Storywork in STEM-Art: Making, Materiality and Robotics within Everyday Acts of Indigenous Presence and Resurgence. Cognition and Instruction, 0(0), 1–21.

Silova, I. (2021). Facing the Anthropocene: Comparative Education as Sympoiesis. Comparative Education Review, 65(4). 587–616. https://doi-org.ezp1.lib.umn.edu/10.1086/716664

Whyte, K. P. (2018). Reflections on the Purpose of Indigenous Environmental Education. In E. A. McKinley & L. T. Smith (Eds.), Handbook of Indigenous Education (pp. 1–21). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1839-8_66-3

State of the World…

LGBTI+ rights are under attack globally, making our struggle more important each and every day. The fight for equality continued in multiple countries this week, such as Panama who is encountering demands to uphold the rights of same-sex couples, in Mexico, where activists sued the Querétaro state congress over marriage equality, and in the United Nations Human Rights Council, where 33 states from all regions of the world called for urgent protection for intersex persons in their bodily autonomy. We also saw Canada and New Zealand work towards banning LGBT conversion therapy. This week shows that regardless of progress, our collective struggle towards liberation continues in every moment with activists in communities across the world working towards freedom for us all.

#1. 33 states from all regions of the world call on UN Human Rights Council to urgently protect intersex persons in their bodily autonomy

#2. Thousands of trans people just lost access to vital healthcare and medication thanks to relentless anti-trans media coverage

#3. Panama Should Uphold the Rights of Same-Sex Couples

#4. Serbia’s gay prime minister wins second term after contested landslide victory sparked corruption claims

#5. Canada reintroduces bill banning LGBT conversion therapy

#6. New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern vows to finally ban conversion therapy and reform gender law

#7. Frente en pro del matrimonio igualitario interpone amparo contra congreso de Querétaro

Global Queer News is an initiative of The Global Center’s Media Unit. Each week, we gather the top seven queer stories from around the world and synthesize them for your knowledge and action.

State of the World…

The LGBTI+ community continues to fight back in the face of adversity. This week we saw progress on multiple fronts, such as in Belgium, where the new deputy prime minister is now the most senior transgender politician in Europe, in Uruguay, where thousands marched for LGBT rights, and as Japan Airlines adopted gender-neutral greetings and ditched exclusionary phrases. However, we saw setbacks in the Cook Islands, where the decriminalization of sodomy has stalled yet again, and in the United Kingdom, where new LGBT-inclusive education guidance produced a majorly problematic caveat for trans kids. This week shows that when facing darkness, we must remember the light. March on!

#1. Belgium’s new deputy prime minister, Petra De Sutter, is now the most senior transgender politician in Europe

#2. Thousands march in Uruguay for LGBT rights

#3. Trans inmates in California prisons to be housed according to gender identity

#4. How the EU can stop Poland’s ‘LGBT-free zones’

#5. Yet another airline ditches the exclusionary phrase ‘ladies and gentlemen’ in favour of gender-neutral greetings

#6. Decriminalisation of gay sex on the Cook Islands stalls yet again in devastating blow to queer community

#7. New LGBT-inclusive education guidance comes with a majorly problematic caveat for trans kids

Global Queer News is an initiative of The Global Center’s Media Unit. Each week, we gather the top seven queer stories from around the world and synthesize them for your knowledge and action.

State of the World…

The LGBTI+ community is constantly battling for human rights globally. In this week’s struggle, we saw the United Kingdom government scrap plans that allow trans people to change their legal gender without a medical diagnosis, a court in France rejected a transgender woman’s demand to be recognized as a mother, and an LGBT-free zone in Poland voted to uphold their homophobic ideology. These depressingly show the setbacks the LGBTI+ community is facing. However, setbacks like these pave the way for change as we see protests in Thailand calling for stronger gender and marriage equality, the Merriam-Webster dictionary updating its definition of bisexual to be more trans-inclusive, and a vital suicide prevention bill becoming the first LGBT-inclusive law unanimously approved by the United States Congress. While this week’s progress is not linear, it shows that resistance to our existence paves the way for change to be made. We must continue to resist globally in solidarity!

#1. British gov’t scraps plan to let trans people change legal gender without a medical diagnosis

#2. At Thai protests, LGBT activists strengthen calls for gender and marriage equality

#3. French court rejects transgender woman’s demand to be recognized as a mother

#4. The Merriam-Webster dictionary just updated its definition of ‘bisexual’ to make it more trans-inclusive

#5. One of Poland’s LGBT-free zones just voted to uphold its homophobic ideology despite global condemnation

#6. Activists in Barbados have confirmed that same-sex civil unions will be legislated while marriage equality will go to a referendum

#7. ‘Vital’ suicide prevention bill becomes first LGBT-inclusive law unanimously approved by Congress in history

Global Queer News is an initiative of The Global Center’s Media Unit. Each week, we gather the top seven queer stories from around the world and synthesize them for your knowledge and action.

State of the World…

To truly achieve liberation for the LGBTI+ community, we need to see progress made on all fronts. We did see progress in many contexts, including the European Union, whose president stated that ‘LGBT-free zones’ have no place in the EU, in Barbados, as they recognize same-sex civil unions, and in Australia, where a teen was told she could undergo life-saving hormone therapy after a court overruled her mom’s attempt to block her transition. These positivities were met with setbacks as in Russian kids’ social media profiles are being screened for LGBT propaganda, and in India where hopes for same-sex marriage were dealt a crushing blow as a top government lawyer claims it cannot be done. These polarizing realities show that we must continue our work to ensure that LGBTI+ folks everywhere can experience progress. Our freedom cannot be achieved until all are free globally.

#1. ‘LGBT-free zones’ are humanity-free zones and have no place in the European Union, says president Ursula von der Leyen

#2. Barbados to finally recognise same-sex civil unions in a major breakthrough for LGBT+ rights in the Caribbean

#3. Teen told she can undergo life-saving hormone therapy after court overrules mum’s attempt to block her transition

#4. Northern Ireland just committed to banning traumatising conversion therapy in a groundbreaking move

#5. Meanwhile, in Vladmir Putin’s Russia, school kids’ social media profiles are being screened for ‘LGBT propaganda’

#6. Indian hopes for same-sex marriage dealt crushing blow as top government lawyer claims it ‘cannot be done’

#7. Native American Two Spirit person becomes the first openly transgender official elected in the state of Maine

Global Queer News is an initiative of The Global Center’s Media Unit. Each week, we gather the top seven queer stories from around the world and synthesize them for your knowledge and action.

State of the World…

LGBTI+ rights continue to waver in this polarized climate. However, acts of solidarity and victories are needed to continue this fight. Solidarity was evident in Germany, as thousands marched across the Polish border in a powerfully symbolic protest; in Japan, as Tokyo highlighted LGBTQ rights with a pride house before the Olympics; and in the United States, as the Oscars announced new diversity rules aimed at boosting LGBT+ and other underrepresented groups. However, Indonesia witnessed nine men enprisoned after homphobic police raided a party. These acts show us that equality is far from achieved. Meanwhile, acts of global solidarity illuminate us as to what is possible in making change — we must cling tightly to our hope.

#1. Thousands march from Germany to Poland in powerfully symbolic cross-border LGBT+ rights protest

#2. A gay couple fought for three long years for their right to become parents. Now, they’re Croatia’s first same-sex foster carers

#3. Oscars announces landmark new diversity rules for Best Picture hopefuls to boost LGBT+ and other underrepresented groups

#4. Tokyo highlights LGBTQ rights before Olympics with Pride House

#5. All Schools in England Required to Teach LGBTQ-Inclusive Curriculum, Even to Young Children

#6. Nine men face jail after homophobic Indonesian police raid perfectly legal ‘gay party’

#7. Olympic footballer Rebecca Quinn comes out as trans and gives masterclass on how cis people can be better allies

Global Queer News is an initiative of The Global Center’s Media Unit. Each week, we gather the top seven queer stories from around the world and synthesize them for your knowledge and action.

State of the World…

LGBTI+ people saw freedoms advanced and threatened this week. In Uganda, officials and a judge were no-shows in court over a queer youth torture case. In Ukraine, Pride event organizers were viciously attacked by neo-Nazis and people on the far-right as police stood by. Polish bishops called for the forcible displacement of queer people into conversion therapy camps. However, LGBTI+ rights advanced in Northern Ireland as same-sex couples were finally able to marry in churches, and in the United Kingdom as bisexual boxer Nicola Adams made history as part of Strictly Come Dancing’s first-ever same-sex pairing, highlighting a massive step in representation. We clearly have a long way to go, but this week’s stories highlight the horrors of what could happen should we give up our fight.

#1. A woman died in solitary confinement because she was trans. Her family was just awarded $6 million in a wrongful death suit

#2. Ugandan officials and judge are no-shows in court over queer youth torture case

#3. Ukrainian neo-Nazi, far-right hooligans viciously attack Pride parade — while police ‘stand idly by’

#4. Love keeps on winning in Northern Ireland with same-sex couples finally able to marry in churches

#5. Polish bishops want to force queer people into conversion therapy camps to ‘regain their natural sexual orientation’

#6. Bisexual boxer Nicola Adams makes history as part of Strictly Come Dancing’s first-ever same-sex pairing

#7. Dating app Grindr ‘disappointed’ by Pakistan block

Global Queer News is an initiative of The Global Center’s Media Unit. Each week, we gather the top seven queer stories from around the world and synthesize them for your knowledge and action.

State of the World…

We saw astounding victories and astonishing setbacks this week in the fight for queer freedom! Astounding victories included a federal appeals court in the United States ruling that it is unconstitutional to bar students from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity, as well as the election of Ed Davey in the United Kingdom, a pragmatist lawmaker who placed trans rights firmly as a plank of his campaign. Astonishing setbacks took place as we saw a young activist in Mexico murdered next to the LGBTI flag, the Prime Minister of Hungary using an event commemorating the end of WWI as an opportunity to launch yet another barb at LGBT+ people, and the former anti-LGBT+ Prime Minister of Australia being hired by the UK as the post-Brexit trade chief. We’re seeing time and time again that LGBTI+ people are under attack. To combat this, we need more public support now more than ever. We must ensure that every human and human right is protected, most importantly our right to life.

#1. Court rules ‘resoundingly yes’ for transgender rights in Gavin Grimm bathroom access battle

#2. Hallan asesinado a Javier Eduardo junto a bandera LGBTI en Cuernavaca

#3. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán launches scathing new attack on queer people at an event to mark the end of World War One

#4. ‘Wake up and smell the coffee’: Ed Davey elected Lib Dem leader

#5. Australia’s staunchly anti-LGBT+ former prime minister Tony Abbott hired by UK as post-Brexit trade chief

#6. News anchors forced out of jobs claim they were victims of sickening homophobia, racism, fatphobia and ableism

#7. Polish gay couple travel to the Vatican to unfurl a giant Pride flag in front of Pope Francis, begging for ‘help’

Global Queer News is an initiative of The Global Center’s Media Unit. Each week, we gather the top seven queer stories from around the world and synthesize them for your knowledge and action.

State of the World…

Equality is at risk as LGBTI+ activists across the world fight for human rights. This week presented landmark successes as China approved the HIV-preventing drug Truvada for PrEP use, officials in Uganda were charged with inhuman treatment and torture of 20 queer men, and Holland adopted anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ persons. Despite these victories, we also saw the reality of conversion therapy in the United Kingdom, “LGBT-free” zones bailed out by Poland after being denied EU funding, and warnings from campaigners that the Czech Republic may soon follow in the footsteps of neighboring countries. It’s clear this week that as progress continues in some contexts, our future work needs to target contexts in desperate need of action. Only then we can all enjoy our queer freedom!

#1. China just approved HIV-preventing drug Truvada for PrEP use — finally — in a stunning victory for activists

#2. This is the horrific, traumatising reality of Muslim conversion therapy and why it needs to be banned immediately

#3. Poland set to bail out ‘LGBT-free’ towns denied EU funding due to their abhorrently homophobic policies

#4. Ugandan officials charged with inhuman treatment and torture after whipping and flogging 20 queer men

#5. Gay artist uses helium balloons to fly a Pride flag over Moscow — and that sound you hear is Putin throwing a tantrum

#6. Czech Republic in danger of following in the homophobic, transphobic footsteps of Poland and Hungary, campaigner warns

#7. Holland adopts anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ, others

Global Queer News is an initiative of The Global Center’s Media Unit. Each week, we gather the top seven queer stories from around the world and synthesize them for your knowledge and action.

Image by Ben Kerckx from Pixabay

State of the World…

We continue to work through another week of triumphs and setbacks in our fight for equality. Resilience was shown in multiple places, like Lebanon, where a fundraising drive to ‘rebuild Beirut with Pride’ was launched after a devastating blast wiped out the city’s queer scene, and in Florida, the United States, where a trans student was forced to use an incorrect school bathroom won a landmark case guaranteeing that other students wouldn’t share this humiliation. Unfortunately, setbacks occurred as police in Poland continued to arrest pro-LGBT protesters and as a man in Canada filed a discriminatory complaint about the existing blood donation ban for queer men. These events and many others show just how far we’ve come in our fight for equality. However, we have far to go to ensure that we all enjoy the same rights and liberties on a global scale.

#1. Lebanese expats launch fundraising drive to ‘rebuild Beirut with Pride’ after devastating blast wiped out city’s queer scene

#2. Poland: Police arrest 48 pro-LGBT protesters

#3. Trans student forced to use wrong school bathroom wins landmark case guaranteeing others won’t share his ‘humiliation’

#4. LGBT+ activists call on Facebook to move faster on Arabic hate speech

#5. Under Olympian Pressure: LGBT rights in Japan

#6. ‘Harmful, deceptive and unethical’ conversion therapy finally banned in parts of Australia. Meanwhile, the UK twiddles its thumbs’

#7. Gay man files human rights complaint with the United Nations over Canada’s discriminatory blood donation ban for queer men

Global Queer News is an initiative of The Global Center’s Media Unit. Each week, we gather the top seven queer stories from around the world and synthesize them for your knowledge and action.