Midwest Two-Spirit History: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality, & Land
Located in Bolton Hall B 52 at UW-Milwaukee, WI
FOOD PROVIDED from Milwaukee Pride
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200 Years of Two-Spirit History in the Midwest: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality, and Land
In this presentation you will find: An Ojibwe woman warrior from the 1830s, a Potawatomi servant who transitioned as a woman in the 1880s, and an African American/Potawatomi resident of Milwaukee who caused a scandal for crossdressing and bigamy in 1914. You will also hear about: An organization for gay Indians founded in 1975, a dream received by a Native lesbian in 1990, and a 2016 Two-Spirit camp of land defenders. All of these histories tell us something important about gender, sexuality, and the theft of Indigenous land in the 200 years of American colonization in the Midwest. This presentation focuses on both recent and distant LGBTQ/Two-Spirit Native American history to reveal how central Two-Spirit people have always been to their communities and to the past and present of the Midwest.
Kai Minosh Pyle is a Métis and Sault Ste. Marie Nishnaabe Two-Spirit writer originally from Green Bay, Wisconsin. They have lived in the Midwest their entire life and currently reside on Dakota land in Bde Ota Othunwe (Minneapolis, Minnesota). As a PhD student at the University of Minnesota, they are researching Anishinaabe Two-Spirit memory-making and kinship through the lenses of history, language, and literature.
Wisconsin Bail Out the People Movement 