M 一 Right! Don’t come fucking with the fam before the fam comes fucking with you! *laughs*
T 一 Exactly! You don't disrespect people’s children, you just don't. And my parents always supported me and had my back. One thing people don’t always realize is that Indigenous communities are often their own sovereign nations and we have a lot of respect for our chiefs and elders, so I always felt protected by that. I can't say however that it is the same experience every Two-Spirit person gets in the communities. Yes, we live in 2021, but the way many tribes operate is still very patriarchal and that comes with the lack of protection for femmes and queer people. To be honest, most Two-Spirit people are often aggressively erased from the community. Growing up on the Rez (reservations), it can be very dangerous for Trans or Two-Spirit people. A lot of us get abused, go missing or get murdered. Nothing is really done because no one is acknowledging that these people exist within these communities, and if you don't “exist” how can we possibly get data on these altercations to prevent them from happening? Government assistance is provided based on data, if there is no data then the state won't provide the resources needed to help. That's why it's been such a prolonged, unseen problem because no one is documenting us; no one writes about us. There is no data to support how many of us are truly affected. That's what we face in our communities, this is why I do what I do.
M 一 As a young nonbinary person I don't often get to meet any elders who have made progression not only in their community but within their identities. How is it like being given a space to be a Two-Spirited person among such a sacred space?
T 一 I’m almost 30 years old and in just 10 years the culture has changed drastically. To see how free and open it’s becoming for people like us to exist is amazing but I still see a gap. I still see this LGBTQ+ community that is supposedly supposed to represent the people and I don't see myself reflected. I don't see a space made for me or people like me being talked about. We’ve been doing what you call “Climate Activism,'' for thousands of years. We are the original caretakers of this land, and to be erased perpetuates a genocide that started 500 years ago.
M 一Why do you think it's so easy for people to overlook the Indigenous communities? It seems like it's something the media is not willing to discuss, and are purposefully being pushed out of the conversation? We learned so much on how to uplift and protect black people in 2020, and I find no one wants to apply that aid and equity to Indigenous communities and it personally really upsets me. They tend to put these man camps near BIPOC communities. These camps tend to be predominantly large groups of men with no one to regulate them, resulting in the abusive sex trade. This isn’t speculation, this is factual, and that is why once these camps pop up femme, trans, and black folks go missing. Often we speak for our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples but Black women and girls are also targeted but with no way to regulate these camps those bodies usually get forgotten. It isn't just Indigenous women, you know? These are sensitive communities full of more than just us, but we are all absorbed under the affected umbrella.
T 一 Well, I know that in order for America to exist, Indigenous peoples and tribes had to be removed. The very essence of American culture is in fact forced removal and genocide. As much as it shocks us and makes us angry, it’s as American as apple pie, we're just seeing what it looks like 500 years later. It may seem passive, but it's still as violent in nature. The biggest issue as to why no one speaks on Indigenous issues is because people don't know the true history. Simple; no one knows the truth about the land they’ve come to call home, and what really went down for so many of us to have the “freedoms” we have. That lack of self-awareness is ultimately what leads to our erasure yet it's hard to get mad at people for not knowing something they never had an option to explore.
M 一 Why is it important that Indigenous people have ownership of the land? Some people don't understand the role of a land caretaker so could you elaborate on that?
T 一 There are frontline blockades and fights happening all over North, Central, and South America. At one point about 20 Indigenous people were being killed a month over protecting their homes against some type of resource extractive industry. So, when we look at this it's not just pipelines, you know? It's the culture of over-extracting. We are taking too much from the earth and we are not giving her enough time to recover. This is our greatest downfall, we have already done things to the earth that we can't reverse but there is hope. Indigenous people make up 5% of the world's population. We manage 22% of the land around the world while 80% of the planet's biodiversity exists in the land we are caretakers. People who've had connections to this land for thousands of years know how to tend to it however not even we can own the land. Rather, the land owns us.
M 一 It seems like you've had to be the ones to share a lot of information most people don't have access to, which is an amazing job you've taken over. What is one thing that keeps getting written out of the media that you wished was talked about? You deserve ownership over your words so talk your shit!
T 一 I'm not going to talk shit but there are conversations that have yet to be had within our own communities. One of those conversations being where our dollars are spent and who we choose to uplift in pop culture and media. Even one of the most beloved and profound leaders of the LGBTQ+ community has ties to the oil industry and that’s Ru Paul
M 一 Rupaul
T 一 Yes! *laughs* Ru Paul owns a fucking fracking ranch on stolen land in so-called Wyoming. It's a plot of land he leases the mineral rights to oil companies for oil extraction. By assumption, because I have no facts on this, one of our favorite Ru Paul productions is brought to you by BIG OIL, and still, crickets… Nothing, not even a conversation as to why she’s chosen profits over people.
M 一 I remember seeing that meme of Ru’s fracking, but honestly I wasn't too familiar with what it was so it kind of escaped my mind. All I knew is that everyone was afraid to talk about it, so I’m glad someone finally brought it up.
T 一 The sad thing is, when you have fracking ranches or oil pipelines, in order to build and maintain them they often build man camps. It’s not just buying a drill and digging one big hole into a mountain, corporations come in and construct hundreds of fracking wells and extract oil from deep beneath to topsoil which completely destroys the land, air, and freshwater tables.