This monthly Spirit-Honor-Inclusion newsletter will share current information with our tribal communities and Native Connections grantees related to LGBTQ and Two-Spirit topics. Each issue will highlight resources, articles, and news or events, plus a featured guest contributor. This month our guest contributor is Will Bean, a community organizer with Native Movement. His work provides the theme of this newsletter: LGBTQ and Two-Spirit Activism.
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William Bean (he/they) works with several non-profit organizations focused on supporting marginalized groups and providing education and tools to those who may not otherwise have access to them. “Work is a big part of my identity right now. As a community organizer, work hours are sort of all the time, and of course I’m on the board for Identity and on the Poor People’s Campaign Alaska.” Will began volunteering with Identity at the age of 19 as a chaperone for youth groups. He also works as a community organizer for Native Movement, a small non-profit with offices in Anchorage and Fairbanks, AK.
As part of the gender justice and healing program, Will primarily focuses on LGBT Native advocacy, offering trainings on decolonization, gender and sexuality, and the importance of pronouns. “I want my events and the work that I do to be inclusive of everybody because everyone has their own rich culture and ideas. I welcome getting more minds at the table, getting more perspectives and new people.” Will has offered a great deal of knowledge to those attending their trainings and youth groups but has also had the privilege of learning from the people that they work with as well. “When I learned about the term 'nonbinary,' I had been playing around with my gender expression for a while but was never really set on male or female. I heard one of the youth talking about it and something just clicked in my head. I was really excited and grateful to be able to learn that from the youth. As a chaperone I was there to provide some training but being able to learn something from them was incredible.”
As an Alaska Native member of the nonbinary community, Will has identified as Two-Spirit. “I really love the term because it’s short, sweet, and simple, and pretty much encompasses my whole identity. It doesn’t really warrant too much explanation, so it makes it a bit easier.” After learning more about the colonial roots of the term, Will now uses the term indigiqueer. “'Indigiqueer' brings together my two identities, much like Two-Spirit does,” he says.
As a seasoned public speaker and youth group leader in the LGBT+ community, Will has some advice for those who may be struggling with their identity: “Recognize that it’s okay that you are struggling right now. It’s going to take a while to feel comfortable in yourself and that’s perfectly okay. It’s okay to reach out to other people. Just make sure that you are doing it with a friend that’s safe – a safe person who won’t 'out' you accidentally. Be very patient with yourself. It took me close to a decade to get where I am now and just be very unapologetically myself."
Will Kusiq Bean
Community Organizer, Native Movement
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Youth Feature - Oliver Tyrrell |
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Oliver Tyrrell (he/they) is a transgender female-t0-male Yup’ik and Iñupiaq individual born in Fairbanks, AK. Oliver lives in Anchorage and has family from Emmonak, AK. They attended the Alaska Native Cultural Charter School and are currently a freshman at Mt. Edgecumbe High School. At the 2020 annual First Alaskans Institute (FAI) Statewide Elders and Youth Conference (a 4-day event to bring elders and high school youth together to strengthen bonds with those who have paved the way for future leaders), Tyrrell introduced Resolution 20-03, titled “Make Panic Defense Illegal Under Alaska Law.”
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Currently, under Alaska law, there is no ban on the “LGBTQ+ panic defense” to protect the Alaskan LGBTQ+ community. Tyrrell says they were inspired to write this resolution by their people and community who are “getting hurt, abused, struck down, murdered, and the offenders are getting away with it a lot more than they should be.” In passing this resolution with FAI, Tyrrell says that raising awareness of this legal defense was their first and main priority, which was successful as they have received new opportunities and support from their community.
“I was always told like most children to ‘be the change I wanted to see.’ That is exactly what I did. I learned more and more about the [‘LGBTQ+ panic’] legal defense. I found out where it was banned, and I learned about how many times it has been used in different states."
In response to asking what the next steps should be for banning this dangerous legal defense, Tyrrell says that consistency is key. They hope that communities, organizations, and groups will hold workshops and educational events to raise awareness to create a solid movement. Implementing letter-writing campaigns to state representatives and other activist actions will create the push needed to achieve this ban. To other indigiqueer/Two-Spirit youth, Tyrrell says, “You are loved, your people love you. You have a place in our community. Please continue to fight for what you believe in, never stop doing that.”
"This defense does not represent our Alaska Native people. We do not encourage violence. We LOVED our LGBTQ2S+ people. I want to bring that love back, not letting violence flow through our land.”
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"The Strange Man and His Whale" |
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From St. Lawrence Island Legends II (SIVUQAM UNGIPAGHAATANGI II)
Developed by the staff of the National Bilingual Materials Development Center, Rural Education Affairs, University of Alaska
From stories written by Grace Siwooko of Gambell, AK
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Alaska Artist Spotlight - Jenny Irene Miller |
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Jenny Irene Miller (she/her or they/them) is an Inupiaq (Kingikmiut) artist born in Sitŋasuaq (Nome), AK, and raised in Nome and Fairbanks, AK. Miller now lives and works in Tiwa Territory (currently named Albuquerque, NM) as a second year Master of Fine Art photography student at the University of New Mexico. They identify as queer and Indigiqueer.
Miller’s work is grounded in storytelling and their identity, from their queerness to their Inupiaq culture, as well as familial and community relations. They work with photography, video, and sound, and they have been exploring the mediums of sculpture and textiles. Miller finds it important not to limit what mediums are used.
In 2016, Miller received a grant from the Alaska Humanities Forum to develop a portrait series of LGBTQ+ and Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer peoples titled Continuous. Continuous is an ongoing project that features portraits alongside stories and perspectives from LGBTQ+ and Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer peoples. Miller’s work has been featured in galleries across the country as well as internationally. Five pieces from Continuous are part of the group exhibition INUA from an all-Inuit group of curators at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in Winnipeg, Manitoba, CA.
The Alaska Humanities Forum and Miller went on to develop a “kindling conversation,” a community conversation toolkit for communities, organizations, and groups to host meaningful conversations, titled Continuous Conversations. Continuous Conversations utilizes some portraits from Continuous along with excerpts to foster dialogue and support for Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer peoples, create safe and welcoming spaces for LGBTQ2S+ folks to thrive, and create pathways for allies to support through this community conversation on how culture shapes our understanding of gender.
“Continuous is for us and by us. It is to show those who cannot be out that they are not alone and that they matter. It is about representation and making space for queer Indigenous peoples.”
Miller says they are currently working on a number of projects, and has been pondering more on home, distance, closeness, the ocean, and navigating loss. From this, they dove into archival photographs and their own photos of family and land from home. This is culminating in an in-progress project titled Horizon (working title) in which they create digital negatives from texted cell phone images of family archival photos as well as their own images, then rework those with the cyanotype photographic process that utilizes the sun's UV rays to result in a blue photographic print.
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Through this project, Miller is reconnecting and reimagining their family’s stories and archive, which is “... meant to mimic the push and pull of the ocean waves through its horizontal sequencing of images that differentiate in length.” “I’m still figuring out the project through the printing process and developing it. It’s been a challenging yet fun project!” says Miller.
“The pandemic has changed everyone’s lives and there is so much loss everywhere. I’m grateful that I can even be creating art right now."
In another newer photographic project that is yet to be named, Miller focuses on their relationship with their partner through the pandemic. This project plays with the power a photographer holds: what information is chosen to be shown, what is concealed, and how tension can be created serving as a form of protection of the subject. This work is “... about home, intimacy, queerness, closeness, and quiet moments,'' says Miller.
On being Indigiqueer, Miller says that it is a gift. In being more open with their identity, they have found opportunity to bring their full, authentic self through their work and personal life which has brought a lot of happiness and healing. As many of us understand, living in a heteronormative, patriarchal, homophobic, and transphobic mainstream society presents unique challenges to Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer folks, but they have found being true to who they are and building others up to be helpful in being resilient.
They say being resilient also means “... knowing where I come from and how resilient my ancestors were, and how they give me strength to continue living a life that is meaningful to me.” Miller also offers this: “Some advice to other 2S folx/youth: Find and build a community [that] supports you for who you are. Reach out when you need help or advice. And always remember that you’re a gift to this world, that you matter, and your voice matters."
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You can check out Jenny Irene Miller’s work at the following exhibitions, podcasts, and links below: |
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Alaska Biennial 2020, Juried Exhibition, Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, AK, November 6, 2020–April 6, 2021*
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What's Your Name When You're at Home, curated by Sabrina Mandanici, Penumbra Foundation, New York City, February 23–April 26, 2021*
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Indigenous Photograph x Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Work of 35 members of Indigenous Photograph projected on the Denver Clocktower every evening from March 14–31, 2021*, as part of Colorado Photographic Arts Center’s Night Lights
- jennyirenemiller.com
- Coffee & Quaq podcast
- Portland Art Museum Podcast, Art Unbound: the map is not the territory
- Aurora Pride offers support group for Indigenous LGBTQ and Two Spirit people, allies
*Although these exhibits have closed, you can still view the information and work online.
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In Two-Spirit Kinship: Epidemic Redux-A Memory |
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Each month, a Two-Spirit ally reflects on their journey of learning from our Two-Spirit relatives.
By BC EchoHawk
It’s April 2021, and we have just completed a full year of living through a global pandemic. Like me, maybe you lost a loved one. Or as we saw COVID-19 ravage our tribal communities, perhaps it was more than one person. If so, I offer my condolences as we continue to pray for our Indigenous communities and people around the world. I hope vaccination efforts increase, and we are able to gather again for the social, traditional, and religious events that have kept us resilient for thousands of years. Until then, as I reflect on this somber milestone, I’m reminded of another place and time when disease and fear touched the lives of many of my friends and their families.
I left home for college in Washington, DC, when I was 17 years old. It was the late 70s, disco ruled, and the world I’d known as a Pawnee and Otoe-Missouria/Iowa girl growing up in Oklahoma City, OK, was about to change forever. While I grew up in the city, my tribes are Oklahoma-based, and we often visited family in the communities where my parents and grandparents had been raised. Like many teenagers, I was ready to see the world and happy to be leaving my small town. I was an avid reader and had long looked forward to being in a big city. I wasn’t wrong to be excited: DC was everything I’d hoped for. After college, I would stay for many more years, and the ‘80s would usher in a time of change and activism in my adopted hometown as the AIDS epidemic was about to erupt.
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Organization Spotlight - I Know Mine |
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The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) HIV/STD Prevention Program established iknowmine.org to provide Alaska Native and rural Alaska youth holistic health education and additional resources to promote healthy lifestyle choices.
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Do you have any resources or events to share in an upcoming LGBTQTS Newsletter? Please click on the button below to complete a short form and send us your information. We will include items in future newsletters as appropriate and approved by SAMHSA. Thank you! |
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The views, opinions, and content expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the views, policies, and positions of the Center for Mental Health Services, the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. |
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