Queer Indigenous presentation highlights intersectionality

The LGBTQ Pride Center took a deeper look at the context that shapes Indigenous and queer identities in a presentation on Tuesday.

Using a framework of intersectionality, the presentation centered on an Indigenous conception of gender to explore a different perspective that’s often overlooked.

Lee Chavis-Tartaglia, a fourth-year studying history and anthropology and vice president of the Native American Student Association, organized the presentation in collaboration with the LGBTQ Pride Center.

The hour-long presentation dove deep into the idea of two-spirit, which is an English term for many Native American orientations to gender.

“The gender binary that we typically use today is a very colonial construct,” Chavis-Tartaglia said. “... The Indigenous people were not subjecting ourselves to male or female. We had other notions, other ideas about what gender identity and sexuality was, or is. Colonialism kind of hindered that understanding for a while, and now we’re trying to reclaim that knowledge that was taken from us.”

Two-spirit was coined in the late ‘90s as an umbrella term for different Indigenous ideas around gender. While the term was invented in the late ‘90s, the different orientations to gender within Native communities go back much further.

“History is change over time,” Chavis-Tartaglia said. “How concepts and ideas can evolve from what they were, or how we can learn from previous concepts and ideas to better our understanding of things.”

The presentation went through the history of the concept of two-spirit and offered glimpses into different, specific conceptions of gender embodied in pre-colonial American society. It also highlighted current queer Indigenous folk.

Between presenting the information, Chavis-Tartaglia opened the floor for conversations on gender and identity.

Joseph Guillemette, a third-year studying zoology, said he felt welcomed and said that when discussing topics such as identity from a historical perspective, it's important to keep an open mind.

“As a queer Indigenous person, I find these presentations really important for the public and other Indigenous people,” Guillemette said. “... When we’re talking about terms like [two-spirit] in an anthropological context, it’s really important to keep an open mind. Each culture is going to have its own idea of what it means to be two-spirit. … It’s important to acknowledge that these ideas aren’t concrete, and they’re open to change.”

The presentation also focused on intersectionality and evaluated how one or more identities interact within a single person’s life.

Attendees were given a paper feather to write multiple symbols and words representing who they were to different people and themselves. The feather represented the complexity of identities and how they coexist in a single body.

The presentation highlighted other topics such as the concept of erasure and the archival work that needs to be done to amend the history of colonialism and the deeper history of Indigenous people.

When asked if there was any room for improvement within the History department at NC State regarding representation of Indigenous Americans, Chavis-Tartaglia said there is a lot of work to be done.

“I think if [the History department] expanded on their Native American history curriculum and actually hired Native American professors, they could do so much,” Chavis-Tartaglia said. “That’s the direction I want to see the department go.”