Indigenous and Queer

Gender and sexuality have been understood and expressed in a wide variety of ways in different parts of the world, in different cultures, and throughout history. As we learn more about other worldviews, our understanding expands, and we can become more compassionate and wise in our interactions with the LGBTQ+ community. Our guests today join Jen In the Den to deconstruct and reconstruct ways of looking at sexuality and gender through an Indigenous lens of intersectionality.  

Special Guest: Celeste Namba

Celeste Namba, a queer woman of Navajo and English-German descent, grew up in Ganado, Arizona, as the youngest of seven. She now resides in Provo, Utah, and works in fintech, focusing on improving financial services for low-income communities. In addition to her career, Celeste and her wife, Keisha, are in the process of adopting their son. Her work aims to create a more inclusive and accepting society for all. 

Special Guest: Sam Perez

Sam is a member of the Navajo Nation who has spent a good chunk of his life working in film and television production. The other part of that is spent raising his kid and trying to be a better person. 

Special Guest: Roni Jo Draper

Roni Jo Draper, Ph.D. (Yurok|she.her) is an educator, storyteller, filmmaker, and activist. Roni began her career as a high school mathematics and science teacher where she worked primarily with children at risk of not completing high school. She is professor emeritus from Brigham Young University where she taught courses in literacy education, multicultural education, and global women’s studies. She is currently on a one-year appointment at Utah Valley University where she teaches courses in multicultural education and classroom management. Roni Jo is also the writer, producer, and director of the documentary short film Fire Tender, which centers the lives of Yurok fire practitioners as they return cultural fire to heal land. Fire Tender will air on PBS in April in conjunction with their Earth Day celebrations.

Links from the Show:

• Information about Fire Tender: https://www.wmm.com/sponsored-project/fire-tender/ 
• Find whose land you live on: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/10/1127837659/native-land-map-ancestral-tribal-lands-worldwide 
• Join Mama Dragons today at www.mamadragons.org 
• Mama Dragons on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mamadragons 
• Mama Dragons on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themamadragons/ 

In the Den is made possible by generous donors like you. Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today at www.mamadragons.org.  

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Transcript

JEN: Hello and welcome to In The Den with Mama Dragons. I’m your host, Jen. This podcast was created to walk and talk with you through the journey of raising happy, healthy, and productive LGBTQ humans. Thanks for listening. We’re glad you’re here.

When we learn about the wide variety of ways that gender and sexuality have been expressed and articulated throughout the world and throughout history it expands our understanding.  It can help us to deconstruct some of the ideas we’ve been given and help us to construct a healthier and more inclusive stance. Today I am super excited to learn more about the terms and traditions that many Native American tribes recognize.  Especially because colonialism has threatened to erase many of these traditions. Recognizing the history on this American continent is important as we seek to push back against contemporary homophobia and transphobia.

And we have a panel of three amazing guests to help us begin our efforts to make our advocacy more intersectional!  Celeste Namba is a queer woman of Navajo and English-German descent, grew up in Ganado, Arizona, as the youngest of seven. She now resides in Provo, Utah, and works, focusing on improving financial services for low-income communities. In addition to her career, Celeste and her wife are in the process of adopting their son. Welcome, Celeste, so glad to have you with us.

CELESTE: Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

JEN: And congrats on a new baby. That’s so fun.

CELESTE: Thank you. Yes. We’re really excited, having lots of fun with him.

JEN: That’s super fun. Sam Perez is a member of the Navajo Nation who has spent a good chunk of his life working in film and television production. The other part of that is spent raising his kid and trying to be a better person. Thank you Sam, Welcome, Welcome.

SAM: Thank you. It’s good to be here.

JEN: And we have Roni Jo Draper, Ph.D. who is an educator, storyteller, filmmaker, and activist. She is a professor emeritus from Brigham Young University and  is currently on a one-year appointment at Utah Valley University where she teaches courses in multicultural education and classroom management. Thank you, Roni Jo for joining us again.

RONI JO: Thank you. I’m happy to be here too.

JEN: Fantastic. I’m so excited about this. So I want to start off a little bit more basic than the topic of gender and sexuality. Many of our listeners, absolutely myself included were raised and educated on this continent with a lot of misinformation, our education was simply inaccurate about the indigenous tribes that were here when the Europeans showed up. So before we launch into the gender and sexuality topics, can you guys address some of these really common misconceptions so we can stop believing them right off the bat?

RONI JO: I think one thing is that not only were we here, but we currently are still here. I think that a lot of times when folks are educated in schools they talk about native peoples as if they only existed in the past and not as though they exist in the present day or will extend into the future. So I think that’s part of the erasure of native peoples as well. So I think right from the get, is just that we’re here.

JEN: Thank you, Roni Jo. That was an awesome way to start.

SAM: I think another one is we’re not a monolith. So like each nation and tribe are a lot of times vastly different than the other. So being Dine’ and Roni’s Yurok, like we’re very different. We have a lot of similarities and I think a lot of those similarities come because of the boot of colonialism has effected all of us. And we share those similarities. But culturally and stuff, we are vastly different between each nation. So I think that’s another thing a lot of people forget, like we all don’t wear head dresses. We all don’t do the same kind of ceremonies. We’ll have different cultural, spiritual practices. So I think that’s another big misconception. Awesome. Thank you so much. Celeste, anything to add?

CELESTE: Yeah. Kind of going off of what Sam said, like a specific example I can’t tell you how many times my wife has told me when she has been talking to someone and said that my wife is Native American that they ask, “Did she grow up in a teepee?” Because being Dine’, we have our traditions for our traditional homes which are like hogans. And anytime a teepee was involved, it was more like a ceremony that was brought on from the plains Indian tribes. So, that’s something that I think is a big misconception that’s still pretty prevalent out there and that’s something I would like to bring to the front.

JEN: It kind of goes a little bit with Roni Jo’s. Right, we’re still here, but we are also are not all doing the exact same things we’re doing in the 1700s.

CELESTE: Right.

RONI JO: Right. You’re family doesn’t still live in a log cabin.

JEN: Exactly.

RONI JO: Our families as well live in homes that are modern with kitchen cabinets and doors  and. . .

JEN: Perfect. I like how that goes together.

SAM: Like, I know what the internet is.

RONI JO: Right. Right. Know the internet, can navigate.

JEN: Everyone is here with me on Zoom.

RONI JO: Right.

JEN: No instructions needed. So, along that same line, are there specific words or phrases that those of us outside shouldn’t be using or that we should be using that are more appropriate, more correct?

RONI JO: I don’t need non-native people to refer to me as an Indian. My parents, or my dad will refer to himself as an Indian. That is a term that’s used on the Reservation. But it’s used in a more tongue-and-cheek way that there’s a little bit of different knowledge behind that. So, that’s not okay. I think in Utah, and with LDS folks, you don’t need to call me a Lamanite. I don’t need to be called that. When people will say, “Oh, so you’re a Lamanite?” Like, no. I’m really not. So that is another thing that is, for me, problematic. Again, there are going to be other Native folks who are LDS who aren’t bothered by that. But for me, that bothers a lot.

JEN: Okay.

SAM: I think there’s a lot of the historical terms that sadly are still used because of, like, sports teams and. And I mean, they got rid of it but like the “R” word. I don’t want to say it.

JEN: I was going to say, you don’t have to say the bad ones.

SAM: But like using the “S” word for native women to like not – and with me growing up. We grew up in Gallup which is a border town. And we grew up in a lot of cowboy culture. You hear those words a lot. I’ve heard my mom, my sister, my grandma, old cowboys and stuff would call them those words. So, like, just don’t. Don’t use those words.

JEN: Okay. Celeste, any thoughts?

CELESTE: I think just for myself, if you’re going to refer to someone specific or someone from a specific tribe, then maybe it would be best to refer to that specific tribe. Like, for our it’s Dine’, where I come from the Navajo Tribe. And some people will say it’s Navajo and some people will say Navajo, but in reality, it’s really Dine’, we are the people.

JEN: So, is it problematic when I said Navajo in your introduction?

CELESTE: No. Not at all.

JEN: OK. That parts okay.

RONI JO: I think one of the things I get frustrated by, and not that this is really a downer, but the Yurok tribe is a fairly small tribe in terms of – in comparison to the Dine’ or Lakota or whatever. But when people ask me and I tell them that I’m Yurok, they will often say, “I’ve never heard of them.” I’m like, I know. But I don’t need to know that you’ve never heard of me. I think that just adds a little bit of salt in the wound, like right. We suffered a huge organized, state-sanctioned, federally-sanctioned genocide in Northern California. And right. They really tried hard for you to not hear of me. So I just think that, I don’t know how you get around that. I mean, people are just being curious and they’re being kind. But it pokes me a little bit.

JEN: When you say small, do you mean currently or do you mean always?

RONI JO: There’s 6,000 members of the tribe right now which is compared to the Dine’ folks, it’s just such a drop in the bucket. But we are also the largest tribe in California.

JEN: 6,000’s not small. That’s a significant number of people.

RONI JO: Well, it would’ve been more had we not been wiped out. But that’s ancient history.

JEN: That’s what I was just going to ask. What was the number at the height? Do you know?

RONI JO: I don’t know. We don’t really have those numbers. But we know that between 1850 and 1910, something like 80% of the tribe was completely wiped out.

JEN: Oh, that just hurts my heart.

RONI JO: Then, after that, children were taken to attend boarding school. And then after that children were taken to forced foster or forced adoption. So maintaining those numbers has always been a real challenge.

JEN: That’s super information.

CELESTE: And to compare the numbers with Roni Jo, for the Navajo nation enrollment, the last number in 2021 was almost 400,000 members.

JEN: Oh, okay. I was dramatically underestimating that.

CELESTE: So significantly different.

RONI JO: Yeah. It’s dramatically different.

JEN: This is all super good information. So I want to jump to the gender and sexuality angle that’s obviously why we brought you guys here. I’m hoping that you can start by discussing the differences in understanding family and community between – I know you can’t speak for all the tribes or traditions but just what you know – and compared to the traditions that came from Europe. They’re not the same. So if we compare what was happening here on the continent compared to what was brought over from Europe, can you guys speak to that?

RONI JO: So I’ll say a little bit about the Yurok people. Because we’re a smaller tribe, we’re not organized in clans. We’re organized by village along the Klamath river, little villages. And within each village would be sort of a group of people who are cooperating, living together, working the land, sharing resources. But the way that the village was organized was that there were several homes. But in each house, women and children would house together, and the men would either sleep outside or sleep in their own quarters. And so you could be married, but maybe not necessarily living – you would be in the same village as your spouse, but you wouldn’t be necessarily living close together. But then it also created time for women to be together, share their concerns, share child care labor, gathering, all the kinds of responsibilities that women had. And then men could also be together. And I think also just sharing emotionally together during sweats and those sorts of things. So there was certainly gendered roles and gendered spaces. But the family organization was quite different.

JEN: Were all of the children sort of raised by all of the women?

RONI JO: Well, you would know who your mama was, but if you were also being talked to by your auntie, it kind of made no difference.

JEN: Okay.

RONI JO: And that’s kind of still how things go. There’s a sort of a sense that we’re all raising these kids together. We all have to have our eyeballs on them. That if an adult makes a reasonable request, then you just need to hop to and get with it.

JEN: Is the housing, living situation, the same now as it was 200 years ago or is it more . . .

RONI JO: It’s more of like an English system of maybe a couple raising children together. But it wouldn’t be uncommon, still, for an auntie or a grandma or grandpa or uncle or other cousins to be there. It’s still, in the Yurok tradition, it’s still not uncommon for people to raise other people’s children out of convenience or out of necessity. Maybe somebody has to be a job off reservation maybe to work. And so maybe children would stay with an auntie. That would be very common and not seen as too scandalous. You know what I mean?

JEN: Yeah. Okay. How is that different or the same as the Navajo nation?

CELESTE: So the first thing that comes to mind when the question came up was, aside from the language and Navajo code-talkers, one of the biggest things that you hear about with the Dine’ culture is that it’s a matriarchal society. So the clan system’s based off the matriarchy. Women were the leaders. They were the ones that make the decision in the family. But that’s a culture that I never grew up in. I’m not sure exactly when that changed. There’s some ideas around, like, maybe when the census started and they were going to the men, asking for the household questions and things like that. There’s different factors that could’ve played into why it changed. But, I mean, if you look even to this day, we haven’t had a women Navajo nation president, so no women leading the sovereign nation. So I think that’s one thing that is a big change that colonialism has had.

JEN: And did the Navajo people, like the Yurok people separate like all the women and children in one spot and all the men outside? Or was it – for lack of a better word – nuclear families living together type of thing. How did that work?

CELESTE: Do you have any thoughts on that, Sam. I’m actually not sure.

SAM: Yeah. I know from what I understand is it was a little more nuclear back in the day. But then when basically colonialism started happening, like Celeste said, the roles, they tried to change it. So, instead of being more Matriarchal they tried to make it more Patriarchal. Like that when they would go to do census, they would always ask the husband even though that’s not the power structure, I guess you would call that. And even now-a-days, it’s still kind of matriarchal in a way. But it’s not, from what I understand, what it used to be. And then when it comes to the family dynamic, it’s still not uncommon to have grandmas living with you, things like that because like when we grew up, my grandma was always there. We either lived with her or she would come over, all that kind of stuff. So I think it’s changed a bit. I know there’s movements to try to get it to go back. And, like Celeste said, we haven’t had a Navajo Nation President that’s female or a woman. And it’s just one of those things where it’s like colonization kind of threw this huge wrench in our culture and there are little movements to try to get it back but there’s also a lot of resistance to that, which again happens because of colonialization. A lot of the men will feel like, “No. I’m in charge. I’m in power. This is how it’s got to be.” Even though back in the day it’s not how it would’ve been.

RONI JO: Yeah. And I think that people often don’t realize that to be a federally recognized tribe, you have to institute a constitution with the federal government.

JEN: I didn’t know that.

RONI JO: You have to show that you have a government. And those, again, that’s another product of colonialization, right? It was like, well, the government maybe wasn’t run that way, but now it has to be run a particular way because in order to maintain a federal recognition, so that is problematic. The other thing that happened, for Yurok tribe and I think for a lot of other folks is that the first ethnographers or anthropologists who came, only spoke to the men. And it wouldn’t have been proper for men to speak for women or to talk from the experience of women. So a lot of things in terms of just like women’s ceremonies or women leading as spiritual leaders or whatever, would’ve been not even gathered in the anthropological records because the first anthropologist were white men who weren’t asking women any questions.

JEN: You can almost sense the intentionality of, you’re doing it wrong so we’re just going to do it the right way and you guys can catch up, kind of energy coming from the Europeans.

RONI JO: Yeah. They were going to civilize us.

JEN: As a woman, I have to be like, “Oh, we should have just assimilated. Instead of conquering, we should have just assimilated. So, the term LGBTQ+ obviously is not native. That’s not the language. 200 years ago, the letters that we would’ve heard any tribe using. So when we’re talking about people who are queer, specifically, are there native specific terms that are used to describe the variety of ways that people experience queerness?

RONI JO: Sam, you look like you were gearing up.

SAM: Yeah. I know, like what my grandma taught me was that there is in Navajo culture, four genders. And they are like female, or I should say, feminine female, masculine men, and then masculine woman and feminine man. And I’m trying to remember the names. I know Hastiin is man. Asdzaan is Woman. I think is Dilbaa is masculine female and Nadleehi is feminine male. And that is kind of how it was because I remember growing up and my grandma had a hair dresser and he was a very flamboyant gay man. And I remember being like, “Mom, he acts like a woman.” And my grandma was like, “That’s just how he is. It doesn’t matter.” And I so that was always my view of when I would see, even before I knew how I felt, it was just like, “Oh, it’s OK. My grandma said it’s okay. She said it’s alright. They’re okay.” But then, obviously, when colonialization comes, you can’t be having that when the Catholics roll in having four genders and all this stuff. To even change the idea of I remember right Nadleehi means like to change or changing one. So it’s like you can kind of change between them. So that doesn’t jive with a lot of Christianity. So the  boot was really put down on that. And, again, there is movements to try to bring it back. I know a while ago they were trying to get gay marriage approved on the Navajo Nation. And it was like the young kids were really fighting for it. And their allies in the Nation were like grandmas and grandpas, like the real traditional ones because they’re like, “Yeah. Why isn’t this a thing? This is how it’s been since creation.” But then you have the colonized members of our nation who don’t like it because it disrupts power in certain ways. That’s what I believe. Even like that, when we look at, just again as a Navajo nation, having these ideas of gender or women in power, holding power, it disrupts, essentially the white supremace ideas that were forced upon us that our nation is now governed by. So that’s why it’s not taught a lot. At least with a lot of kids even though that was the way since time began. But not anymore.

JEN: Okay. So now you made me think of the words that you were talking about, I only speak English. So in my English brain, I’m trying to translate that. Like you’re saying masculine male, are these connected to biological sex or are the four genders totally unrelated to – I mean obviously, you’re not testing chromosomes in the 1600s – is it separate from biological sex or are they connect? Like masculine man would be, I can’t even think of words, like a more muscley, hunt-y biological male. Does that make sense? Does my question make sense?

SAM: And here’s where I’m a little out of my depth. Because, like I said, I’m going off what I was taught, what I was raised. And it was just kind of like the way my grandma was like, “That word is for women who love women. Or this is for men who love men.” It was kind of like explaining gays and lesbians.

JEN: So are those words attached actually to sexuality?

RONI JO: Yeah. I think sometimes, if you think more of like a gender role, like the roles that people have, like a man is to marry a woman. That’s a behavior to be with a woman. So a man who isn’t attracted to women or isn’t with a women, is with a man. That’s a behavior. And that’s defying a gender role. And so like there would be, for Yurok there are really gendered roles in terms of who can make what kind of baskets, who can eel, who can fish, who hunts, right? But then there could be people who just sort of break that rule. Men aren’t supposed to do close-weave basket making. But then there could be, except for that guy.

JEN: And is it socially accepted or does everyone consider that guy a weirdo?

RONI JO: Yeah. No, people just consider that guy. like, “Well, you know. We know that guy. He’s in the village. We know.”

JEN: So you’re not trying to force him to quit making those baskets?

RONI JO: No. No.

JEN: Okay.

SAM: Well, I think too, these are concepts that are, like you said,  for one their older. And I think it’s really hard to tie cis, hetero, or homosexual to this term because it doesn’t really mean it. So that’s just kind of like a very general basic of it. We’re using terms about sexuality that weren’t really concepts back then. So that’s why it’s hard to answer it. And I know bits of it, but maybe not enough. But it’s hard to take concepts of spirituality or culture or whatever it may be, and then when you try to force it into the box of modern white, western European American thinking, it’s like putting the square peg in the circle. It doesn’t exactly fit. There are some things that can relate a little bit. But it’s hard to explain because there’s so much cultural and spiritual knowledge behind these ideas that it’s hard to explain sometimes. Especially, and I don’t speak Navajo fluently. But I know like even in the language, there’s so specific way we speak and the words we use, that there really isn’t a lot of direct translation. Som, again,  it’s just like taking very big complex ideas and you’re just like let’s mash it into this LGBTQ. Which is not bad, but it’s just difficult.

JEN: And not direct translations, it sounds like.

RONI JO: I think one of things is that, like the Yurok language, I think that’s who we understand culture too. How people conceptualize things is understanding how the language is used or how it’s structured. But the Yurok language doesn’t really a lot of words for gender. You know, like you have a word for dad, for mom, for grandma and grandpa. But then in terms of pronouns, there’s like you, like if I was talking to you I would say you. If I was talking about me I would say me. And if it was talking about Sam who is not either you or me, I would use a pronoun the same pronoun I would use for Celeste, the same pronoun I would use for my dad, the same pronoun I would use for my mom. So it’s just like there’s you and there’s me and there’s this other being who’s not us. But their gender doesn’t matter.

JEN: I was just going to say, is that attached to the idea that gender is less prominent or enforced?

RONI JO: Right. Right. Less enforced, I think that’s a good point. I think that’s a good way of putting it. And then even like the way people’s names are, your name could change several times in your lifetime. You know, so and I have multiple names. You call me Roni Jo. People call me Roni. My dad calls me Jo. You know, people call me different names. My aunties call me different names. My grandma called me Josephina, not even close to my name. But I would never stop her and say, “Grandma, that’s not my name.” You could move. You could be like, Weitchpec Jim. But now, maybe you move to a different village so now you’re Srigon Jim, or maybe Srigon already has a Jim, so now you have to be some other name so it’s not confusing. So the idea that you have this name that’s always associated with you would not be a common thing in the Yurok culture.

JEN: And are the names gendered at all?

RONI JO: Usually not.

JEN: Okay. So, like if I heard . . .

RONI JO: No, you wouldn’t be like, “That’s a girls name.” I have cousins who have the same name but their not the same gender. It would be really common.

JEN: Okay.

SAM: Well, I think too, with Navajo, if I remember right, it’s not even the way we speak is not gendered. It’s kind of like basically boiled down to, I think it’s inanimate and animate. So it’s like humans are animate. Plants are not. And those are like the pronouns you would use are either as an animate or inanimate. So there really isn’t she/her or he/him, all that. And I think, again, the masculine traits are kind of added to the animate, but it doesn’t, it’s not he, like this is a him. Its just like that person who’s animate. Again, it’s like Navajo’s very complex so it’s very hard to get these ideas, like translate them, exactly.

RONI JO: Right.

JEN: I was going to say, Celeste, do you have anything to add before I move on?

CELESTE: Yeah. I was having a conversation with my mom about this because lately she’s been having a little trouble remember how to gender in English because her mind is going more towards Navajo. But she was trying to figure out why she was having such a hard time. And she was like, “Well, my first language was Navajo and there are no genders when you’re talking about something.” It’s pretty much like you, me, or that person, like Sam said, or they. And the focus on the sentence that you’re forming is not on the gender. It’s more on like what you’re trying to say, what was the action or what it was that happened. It’s not focused on the gender of what action was done by that person.

JEN: I actually really like that.

SAM: Yeah. It’s like, what are they doing? Are they sitting? Are they standing? Are the walking? Are they running? Are they coming towards you? Are they coming away? That’s more what it is.

RONI JO: Yeah. Same in Yurok that it’s a verb-based language. So a scarf is, ”I wear it around my neck”. That’s how it translates. The animals, “It eats fish”, that’s the name of whatever type of bird, you know what I mean? So it’s more about what people do.

JEN: I’m a practical person. I like this language a lot already. It just makes more sense. It makes more sense. So, while we’re in the world of words. If I’m talking to – I don’t even know how many tribes there are. How many tribes are there currently still in the states, registered or . . .

RONI JO: Federal recognized, I don’t know the number right off the top of my head, but it’s something like 570.

SAM: I was going to say like 500 something.

JEN: Okay. So if I’m asking you to speak for 500 tribes, obviously, you cannot.

RONI JO: And that’s not even the ones that aren’t federally recognized. There’s probably another 300 or so.

JEN: So this is going to be a giant question that we’ll just have to accept we’re not completely answering. But if I were to talk, like for Celeste or Sam or you, Roni Jo. When you’re describing your gender and or your orientation, do you just use the English terms and adopt the weird European ideas about these. Like, would you say, “I’m a lesbian”? Do the majority of people continue with the language of their original tribes? Do they identify with that language or is it now kind of Americanized? Every question I’m asking is so awkward. I have it my head but getting it out of my mouth is so awkward.

RONI JO: No. It’s good. It’s good. It’s right. That just shows you how much more we need to be talking about this so that we don’t have to have awkward language around it.

JEN: It is not flowing out of my mouth. Do you understand what I’m asking? Does everybody just use the English words to describe themselves now?

RONI JO: We kind of have to for Yurok people because our language is also is something that has been a struggle to keep alive. Right now, there are no native speakers of Yurok. There are people who know Yurok very well because they’ve started learning it a young age. So we don’t have a lot of words. Again, a lot of words that we know are because a colonizer gathered up our words and they’re stored in a library in Berkeley. So, again, if the colonizers or the people coming in and doing that, the anthropologists the ethnographers, if they weren’t coming in asking about sexuality in terms like that, it wasn’t like the Yurok people could share. So that for a lot of indigenous nations who’ve lost a lot of their language, losing those terms has also occurred.

JEN: Does anybody else have anything you want to say on that before I move on? I see wheels turning.

SAM: Yeah. I guess, now are you asking personally what we use?

JEN: Sure. I mean, I’m not asking you to identify yourself. I’m just saying a man who is attracted to other men, would you use the word, ‘Gay’ or would you use feminine man, feminine masculine.

SAM: I think, at least for me, I do use a lot more, I guess, European words because it’s part of the culture that I’m in. I think it’s easier. I feel like, I’m a late bloomer to my sexuality and what I feel, but none of the words really feel right. But I just use them because it’s easier. So like if I just say, “I’m bisexual’ because people get it. Whereas if I’m like, “I’m a changing one and gender isn’t real.” That’s like a long conversation. I think it’s just shorter to just be like “Yeah. I’m this.” And people get it. Whereas, yeah. So that’s me personally. I just use those because it’s easier.

JEN: Is that true even if you’re talking to other Navajo people?

SAM: No. If I’m talking to other Navajo people – well even then, because some, like I said, a lot of Navajos, I have friends who are Navajo and they live on the Res and stuff, they don’t know a lot of this stuff, too. You kind of have to go out and seek it. Especially if your family isn’t really involved in it. So I have a couple Navajo friends that they may not care or don’t get it or whatever. So I’ll just use those terms with them because, again, it’s easier.

RONI JO: I don’t identify as two-spirit?

JEN: You don’t or you do?

RONI JO: I don’t.

JEN: Okay.

RONI JO: I know a lot of people who do who are native. But no. I think I have you beat on the late blooming there, Sam. But I identify as queer. I think that feels more appropriate in terms of understanding my sexuality, my gender. I identify as a woman, but I’m also willing to do man things. So you if you think of gender as a performance, then certainly that fits in there. But I am intrigued by the word indigiqueer. And I’ve been really resonating with that. It’s a way, in terms of trying to break myself up like I enter a space, am I queer in this space or am I indigenous in the is space? When people ask me my identity, are they asking about my queerness? Are they asking about my indigeneity? So that sometimes feels awkward. So I think I like indigiqueer for a way of pulling things together.

JEN: Is that a word that the other two of you use or are familiar with?

CELESTE: I’m familiar with the word. I haven’t used it to describe myself. I do like to use the word queer because it’s just kind of like all-encompassing, like an umbrella term. So that you’re not trying to, if there’s still things you haven’t figured out yet, it’s just kind the umbrella term. But, for me, you know, even though I grew up on the reservation, there was also this kind of step away because my family was Christian. We grew up Mormon. And I remember being a teenager and having a white leader. I don’t know if he was the branch president or the counselor to the branch president, but I remember specifically him getting up and saying that the only ceremonies that you should be taking a part of are the ones that happen in the temple. So he was pretty much telling the whole congregation to not participate in Navajo traditions. So that’s the kind of world that I grew up in where I was kind of a little bit removed from my culture because of my family background. And, like, even my grandparents were Christian and I’m not sure if that started when they were forced into boarding schools or if that came on later in life. But really, the only terms that I have to use are the American terms, the European terms for LGBTQ. And it wasn’t until my later adult years that I had actually learned about the four genders. And it was intriguing to me. I looked into it a little bit. But it wasn’t something that was actively taught in my family or at school or anything like that.

JEN: That’s such a clear example of cutting people off and breaking those traditions, that colonization. And I want to talk about that. But, before we go there, I want to talk about the idea of being two-spirit because before I started Googling for this conversation, I was wrong about what it meant. So I’m hoping you guys will kind of cover what it means. And I was also super surprised to figure out that the term was coined in the 1990s. And I’m interested in what it meant and why it went away and why it came back in this new form, if you guys can speak to that.

RONI JO: Well, my understanding of two-spirit was that because many indigenous tribes had lost language or had lost some of the understanding because of colonization because of the colonization especially of Christianity. The mission districts in California are all about the Catholics creating these little missions all throughout California and trying to convert native folks. So there needed to be a term that really reflected that. And I think that, again, I think there’s been a positive thing to think about sexuality is different  than gender. Maybe we have sexual attractions, romantic attractions, you know, and as we’ve been in the LGBTQ community, refining language that has been helpful. But I think that there is a need to be a little bit more – our language is never going to be so exact. And so adopting a term that is a lot more fluid, like queer, makes sense. I think that was the attempt for two-spirit as well. But there was also the notion which is again my understanding depending on the tribe that you’re in, who are the spiritual leaders? For a lot of tribes, that would be women. But perhaps there’s a tradition of folks who are queer within – of course they had a term that did exist – but being seen as having different kinds of spiritual gifts and being able to perform healing or ceremonies in particular because of that gift. I’m just rambling now.

JEN: No, you’re not.

SAM: I think for me the term, I think it’s good because there are nations and tribes that have lost big parts of their culture and who they are. And sometimes it is great to find a term that maybe could be used for you which I think two-spirit can be a great term for someone who – like even for me, I’ll say bisexual or queer or whatever. And I resonate a bit with it – but then it doesn’t fit. Where two-spirit, there’s elements of it. I’m like, okay there’s something here. But one of the things with me with two-spirit, it is more of pan, indigenous, which we’re not all the same. So that’s probably my one critique of it. It feels like, I don't know. But then again, though, if it works for some people, that’s great. If you connect with that term and you feel this connection to your culture or this lost spirituality or your homelands, then great. But I don’t know. I think, like I said, for me there are more – I guess it’s because I’m lucky and privileged enough that there are pieces of my culture that I can looks to and adapt and use that it’s like I don’t really need to use it as much. But I guess, that’s my personal opinion. Does that make sense?

JEN: No, it does.

RONI JO: I was in a meeting one time where there was a woman who had like a maybe like an eight or ten-year-old child who was gender expansive. And everybody was white. She was white. Her kid was white. And then she said, “My child is two-spirit.”

SAM: I don’t like that.

RONI JO: That’s not, I don’t like that either. Give us one thing. Just let us have one thing. You don’t have to colonize that too.

SAM: And speaking of that, too. I’ve seen a lot of white queer people kind of using the term two-spirit. And it’s like, even if I’m not a fan of it, that doesn’t give you the right to think that because there are indigenous people who really connect with that term and it means a lot to them. And then the have this white person, “Well, I’m two-spirit, I guess.” It’s like, “No. No you’re not.”

JEN: So, Celeste, before I let you answer this one also, can you start your answer by going super elementary like you’re talking to the first-graders. What does it mean when someone says they’re two-spirit?

CELESTE: Well, even though I don’t resonate with two-spirit myself, when I first came across the term, I wanted to look into it a little bit more and see why people were drawing to that. And I think one of the biggest things is that I am more complicated than fitting into your gender roles or gender boxes that I encompass something more complicated than you can understand about me. And I think that’s what two-spirit is about.

JEN: So it’s almost sort of synonymous with the idea of being queer? Like it’s just big and it’s not cisgender, heterosexual? Or is there a spiritual component to it?

RONI JO: I think there’s a connectional component to it. I feel like even if you’re, maybe, disconnect – I hate that term too, disconnect  native – but I just feel like if you’re living in a native way, whatever that means to you, again, I think it’s going to be really particular to the person in terms of understanding your spirituality or connecting with your people or connecting with the land. Then, I can see where two-spirit makes sense. I think even spirituality is fraught, that’s an English term and, I think that for me, I don’t see a separation between my physical, my corporal self and my spiritual self. I’m just like a whole self. And spirituality, whatever in the way that white people sort of think about that, when I hear them describe it, I go, “Okay. That’s in my being.” So I think that even words like “Spirit”, there’s a lot lost in the translation of that.

JEN: So was two-spirit coined by a white person?

RONI JO: I don’t think it was. It seemed like it happened at maybe some sort of a meeting or maybe a pow-wow or something where there were a lot of queer indigenous folks and they said we’ve got to come up with our own term that reflects more of what we are. But, then again, it’s a pan indigenous term. And so if you, like me, I really baulk at pan indigeneity. Then the term “Two-spirit” comes with that baggage.

JEN: And when you say Pan, what you’re talking about is munching all the tribes into one big group?

RONI JO: Right. Because I also have been asked “Did my family grow up in a teepee?” No, that would be disastrous on Yurok that would make absolutely no sense.

JEN: Okay. So, in general, I think there’s this idea that I want to know if it’s like misinformation or if it’s realistic. This idea that if you were queer or two-spirit or LGGBTQ+ or whatever words we want to talk about someone who doesn’t fit into all those masculine, feminine norms behavior-wise. What was the spiritual implication? Like if we think of Christianity or Islam, we can automatically, we all know what the spiritual implications were for that. And within indigenous tribes or at least your own tribes, do you know what the spiritual implications of being other or less average might be?

RONI JO: I think part of it is having an extra ability. I think that instead of seeing queerness as a deficit or something that needs to be pounded out or something that is problematic or like, “That’s too bad. We have to pity that person.” It’s more like saying, “Oh, my gosh. The person’s got away of seeing the world, being in the world that a lot of people don’t have access to. And so that we need to be aware, maybe, because maybe queer people are able to notice more. They’re able to see more because of their sort of flexibility in the world. And so that makes their point of view interesting or at least something to be aware of, pay attention to.

JEN: Okay.

SAM: Yeah. I remember my great-uncle. He used to like, he was kind of a jokey guy. But he would always say like,  he had friends who would be gay or however the nomenclature was at the time. But I always remember he’d be like, “Yeah, you know, that guy’s special because he can love like a woman but fight like a man.” That’s kind of like how he would always put it.

JEN: Like a super power?

SAM: Yeah. And to him, because it was kind of like what he meant was this person can care like – nowadays, because when I heard that when I was little, I didn’t really understanding it, obviously. But like now, as I’m older, it’s like if you’re using modern terms or things like that, it’s like, “This is probably a guy who might be more emotionally connected to his own emotions or things like that so he could comfort someone in a more ‘feminine’ way. But also, he could be tough. And like this one guy we knew. He was a bull rider. He could ride bulls which is a tough thing to do. But he could do both of them. And my great-uncle, he thought, yeah, like Roni said, It’s like he has a very different perspective on the world and life then my uncle or maybe some other people like who are just focused on one thing. And it’s like, “Well, I’m a man and I do this.” Where it’s like this guy, he can look at other situtations and things like that and look at it from many different perspectives because of who he is.

JEN: That makes a lot of sense. A lot of what you guys are saying – if this is offensive, tell me – but I find myself feeling a little bit of envy. Like, “Well that sounds better. Why don’t we do it that way. That sounds better.” There’s a little bit of, a little bit of jealousy.

SAM: Yeah. It is frustrating because when you learn this stuff, you’re like, “Yeah. It is better. Why aren’t we doing this.” But, again, I think it upset a lot of current power and we can’t be having that. So we got to throw this away because whatever rich people need more yachts and need to enforce this style of thinking to get them more yachts or whatever it may be.

CELESTE: Mm-hmm.

JEN: Celeste, any thoughts on the spiritual or even the  cultural implications.

CELESTE: Yeah. When the question was posed, the thing that came to mind was that religion, whether it’s Christianity, Islam, I feel like a lot of the focus is on what your status will be in the next life. Whereas, in indigenous culture, the focus is now. The focus is the present and how a queer person can contribute to family, helping take care of kids, if it’s a woman and she’s going out hunting, she’s contributing to the family. Or if it’s a man who’s staying home cooking, when the roles are flipped it doesn’t really matter. They’re still contributing to the household or the tribe. And that’s definitely something I think traditionally is not looked at as okay. This is something we need to fix about you. It’s just something that, okay this might not be in the norm, but you’re still helping our little tribe here. You’re helping out.

RONI JO: Yeah. So in a village, we don’t need one man, one woman like you’d think about in a family. You need lots of hands. You’ve got people gathering acorns. You’ve got people gathering potatoes. You’ve got people setting the forest on fire so that we can have materials. You’ve got people making nets, gathering materials to make nets, setting the nets, processing the fish. You have all these tasks that have to be done and there’s a sense that women don’t take life, they make life. Okay, but then, again, but if a woman is out eeling or out hunting then it’s like she probably needs to do that it eat or that village maybe is in trouble or maybe something has happened to the men. It’s not like she’s in violation. It’s just like what does the  village need? Let’s get it done. And so I think that when you’re organized, there’s a lot of talk about people being upset about the destruction of the nuclear family that really has only ever existed since 1950 for white people. But part of the nuclear family is missing a lot. So when my kids were living with me, when they had their children, my role was the play with the grandchildren while other people fixed the meal. I kept the children out of the kitchen were they could be at risk of being burnt or step on or whatever. That was my role. That was my position and my role as the grandma. So we need to get back to the village that’s outside us.

JEN: I was just going to say, there’s like this element of the opposite of greed and hording.

RONI JO: Right.

JEN: Like if you’re casting a net and you’re getting all the fish and you just take them into your house and then you sell them to other people in the tribe and keep them and let them die, that’s like a whole different energy than like, “I’m fishing for the tribe and we’re all going to eat the fish.”

RONI JO: And I’m only taking out as much as I need. And if I need more, I can come back. The fish aren’t going anywhere. I don’t need to hoard that.

JEN: And the people who took care of my children while I was casting the net, their job was equally important. So they can eat the fish.

RONI JO: Right. I need to feed them.

SAM: In Navajo culture the term is called hozho, which means “Walk in Beauty” but it’s like about balance. And going back to like Celeste mentioned, it’s about you’re finding your place in this community. It’s not about this afterlife that you’re looking for or working towards. And hozho is about balancing within yourself and how you can help your family, and how that can help your community, and how that can help the environment, and how that can help our non-human brothers and sisters, like, you know, the animals and the plants and all of that. And I think that’s a lot that’s missing. It’s frustrating because that’s how, as I get older, I view the world more is like, “Well, how can I bring a little less chaos to myself, my family, my community, my world?” And I think a lot of the way, especially in America, it’s not set up to be that way. It’s “Well, I need to get what’s for me. I need to get all the fish and then make as much money and screw everyone else if they don’t get fish because they should’ve got the fish” But it’s like in a lot of indigenous cultures it’s like there might be someone who couldn’t because like that taking care of the kids. They were doing an equally important job which is taking care of the children or sewing or doing whatever. So they also deserve some. And I think, again, I look at it that way. It’s about balance. And when you have all that balance, it makes the world a better place.

JEN: I’m not sure you’re going to find a lot of people who wouldn’t say we’re currently – I think most of us would agree we’re pretty unbalanced as a nation and a people right now.

SAM: I think that’s what’s been hard, for me at least, especially the last 15 years trying to live this way and do it. It is hard being in the world because there are so many times where I just want to like, pack up and go back home because there’s still problems there, but at least some people kind of get it. I don’t know. It’s frustrating. I used to work in homeless services. I ran a homeless shelter. And you’re just trying to help people and bring this balance to them and help them. And this whole system is create to not do that. It’s the opposite. So it’s, I don't know, it’d difficult and it sucks sometimes.

JEN: We’ve talked a lot about how colonization in general has impacted the view of queerness, two-spirit, LGBTQ-ness in indigenous tribes, specifically yours. We’ve talked a lot about you could go to seminars for months and I still probably wouldn’t understand it all. But we’ve spent most of the time talking about this colonial colonization impact on that. Do you guys have ideas how we help you guys decolonize some of that when it comes to the idea of queerness when we’re in the spaces of advocacy and we’re trying to make things better and right and more inclusive, how do we unpack some of that in this intersection specifically?

RONI JO: I think, even that we were talking about before, where there’s just this like real desire, and it comes from a place of pure curiosity and goodness of trying to understand like I have these English words, how do I translate it here? Or when I described two-spirit and people are like, “Oh, that’s just like being gender-fluid.” And it’s like, “See that. What you did right there was an act of colonization. You’re trying to impose your language and your understanding the way that you understand it onto me. And it doesn’t feel like you’re letting my words be my words and just sitting with it.” You know what I mean? So thinking about how we can not force English language on all of these ideas, especially for indigenous folks.

JEN: I love that. Thank you.

CELESTE: I think doing a little bit of research on collectivism and individualism and understand that indigenous cultures are very collectivist cultures. We very much – like the way that we have thrived and made it thus far is because all of our actions have been for the good of the community, for the good of the tribe. And when there’s selfishness involved or acting according to what would be best for you, then it kind of breaks down that. And I think that’s a big thing that colonialism has influenced into is that breakdown.

SAM: Yeah. I would say to go off that idea, American Exceptionalism is one of the most destructive ideas that has ever been brought to this land. That if you only look out for you and that’s it, and hustle and grind to get to this next level, and damn everyone below you, I hate it. I hate it. It drives me insane. And you see it every day. Every day in this country, you see the fallout from it as our world is literally burning and the water is poisoned and the air is becoming more and more – I mean we have microplastics in everything now. And it’s all because of these simple ideas of like white supremacy, capitalism, Christianity all mixed together into this evil that just disrupted everything. For what? I think that’s a big thing for me. When I’m meeting new people and stuff, it’s like you’ve got to be – I’m going to yell at you about these ideas and you’ve got to kind of be able to think about it more. And it’s like if someone I meet can’t be like, “Well, maybe capitalism’s okay.” It’s like,

RONI JO: We’re all done talking.

SAM: “Get out of here. You have nothing to add to my life if you think this is a good thing.”  I don’t know. I think that’s definitely a part of it, for me at least, to have these conversations and what does decolonization mean. And I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but it’s not up to me, Celeste, and Roni. It’s kind of like you need to tell your people this. You guys need to get these ideas and break them down and get rid of them because it’s like they’re the one upholding these constantly. And I’m not saying, because there’s natives that uphold this. Many of them who love capitalism and white supremacy. But it’s like we got to start breaking these ideas down, even just these concepts of multiple genders. We can’t even have this conversation because you already have these three major blocks in your head. So I hope I don’t sound like I’m crazy.

JEN: I think you sound completely rational.

RONI JO: Well, I think that people don’t realize, as Native Americans growing up in the US or in Canada, we went through English schools. We learned about capitalism. Sometimes when I’m like, “Damn the Capitalism, there’s somebody that’s like, “Well, maybe you don’t understand.” No. I understand it. I went to the same schools you went to. I’m educated in the US. Most of the things I’ve ever read have been written by white men. And I go out of my way to read things by indigenous peoples, Black, people from the global south, and often folks don’t. If it kind of goes to what you were saying earlier, Jen, like I just didn’t know. Yeah. you didn’t know because it was never part of your education. I learned your education, the same thing. But then I had to learn extra on top of that. And so I think I get frustrated when people are like, “Well, let me really explain to you how Christianity isn’t trying to erase you.” Well, no. Until you’ve read what I’ve read, we can’t have this conversation. I need you to know what I know because I already know what you know and I know what I know.

SAM: That’s why I don’t have a lot of friends because you got to do a lot of reading if you want to be my friend.

JEN: But even, Roni Jo, you’re talking about what we didn’t learn. I think that would be bad enough. But I can remember very specific lessons where we just learned wrong things. We just learned things that were completely inaccurate.

RONI JO: Yeah.

JEN: So it’s not even like just this vacant lack of information as much as first you have to unlearn and you don’t even know that you were lied to.

RONI JO: Yeah. Right. So I want everybody to learn that hunter/gatherers had agriculture. I think that a lot of people think that hunters and gatherers like they just wandered the plains. What, I can eat that? I’ll try that. Or that they didn’t understand how animals reproduce. The reason why we have a herd of buffalo is because they were managed by indigenous people. The rivers were managed by native people so that the fish could come. And there were regulations that were placed when you could fish, when you couldn’t fish, how you could fish. I think too, for like indigenous people, I feel like I’m so busy trying to get white people to understand that we have agriculture and understand how animals work, that I forget that I want to fight for my queerness.

SAM: Yeah.

RONI JO: I’m just trying to fight for my indigeneity to be real and recognized. It’s like, I’ll put that on the back burner until I can get people to realize that I exist and I am from a tribe that is real.

CELESTE: And a tribe that has a lot of knowledge. A  lot of knowledge that unfortunately was lost through colonization.

SAM: Here’s a good example. I used to work in this resort kind of town. I worked at a toy store. We had a lot of tourists, get a lot of Europeans. And I get it, Europeans are different. But I remember this one guy, he was German, and a lot of our crew was Dine’, Navajo. And he found, and he was blown away. And I remember he asked for pictures with us because he’s never seen one of us.

JEN: And you’re just wearing like jeans and a t-shirt.

SAM: Yeah. I’m wearing the KB Toy button-up and jeans.

JEN: Okay.

SAM: And my hairs in a pony, like nothing crazy. And I remember we’re taking pictures and we’re talking and he goes, “Oh, I thought you all died in the 60’s because John Wayne killed you all.” And this was a legitimate thought this man had. And so there’s parts where it’s like Roni said, how can I focus on this part of my identity, like my queerness, when there’s people who don’t even think I exist. It’s so hard to do anything else. You’re not even at the bar. Where is the bar, in hell? Come on, get it up there.

JEN: I want to toss in this little – I don’t even know what to call it – little gotcha. Not for you guys but for the world. You guys are talking about before, I was thinking about how you were talking about how this expansiveness was celebrated in most or many of the tribes. Did that make everyone in the tribes just suddenly want to be that way? We hear this narrative in politics, right, like if you let gay people get married, everyone will be gay and then no one will have children. Or, if you make it normal for – I’m trying to use words that we hear right – like if you make it normal for men to dress up like women, then there won’t be any order to society because everyone will suddenly want to do it. And you guys are talking about cultures that existed for thousands of years that were celebrating these things. Did it make everybody queer?

RONI JO: It didn’t make enough people queer.

JEN: Not enough.

RONI JO: We could’ve done better.

SAM: I would say, you know what, maybe everyone was a little queer. I don’t know. Maybe my grandma, who was into this, maybe she was queer, maybe she was a little queer. I don’t know.

RONI JO: I think it goes back to what Celeste was saying, like, the community’s pretty small. We just can’t lose people. It takes all of us to raise the children, to get the food, to build the homes, to whatever. So if you’re queer, that’s cool, awesome for you. We’ve got a fire to build. What are you doing? But I think a lot of this comes down to control. And that’s where the patriarchy and white supremacy is so much about control. We’re going to control what you look like, who you love, who you marry, what ceremonies you participate in. We’re going to control all of that. But I think that for an indigius mindset, if there is such a thing, it’s a lot less about control because it’s more about balance. We don’t have, I don’t know the Yurok term where we focus on balance but that’s what we hear all the time, “Walk in a good way. Do things in a good way.” Have balance. Be in balance. Balance yourself. Balance your family. Balance the world. Fix the world that way. And that’s a little bit less about controlling who you are, I think, in kind of sort of like a police or surveillance kind of way. But more in terms of controlling yourself in order to contribute to the wellbeing of the village or the group or the tribe.

CELESTE: I think if the patriarchy of society could learn how to let go of that control, you would see that our communities would just start healing themselves.

SAM: Yes. I believe that.

RONI JO: Men could learn how to cry.

SAM: Yeah.

RONI JO: That would be a beautiful thing. I don't know if that’s gay or not. But I think that the world could use it.

SAM: Well, I guess like an example for me, I grew up very a lot of it, I was younger and I was in a lot of violent situations, and gang related stuff. And I wasn’t very in touch with my emotions for a lot of years. And then when I started to go to therapy and I notice as I’m older and opening up these parts of me, and I would say when I access this more “feminine” side, which society deems feminine which is accessing emotions, healing in that way, I find I am so happy. I am much more happy and to use the other word, balanced. I feel better as I’m taking more pieces from that side of my person or my spirit, whatever you want to call it, that I kind of shut off for 20 years, whatever. It’s really helped. And I think, like Roni said, if we could all just access that, I think it would help so much to just, I don't know, make the world not as awful of a place.

RONI JO: Mm-hmm.

JEN: History and evolution of all of this, the native LGBTQ+ culture, I wish I had more languages than just English to try to cram this all into. I appreciate so much you guys being patient with me as I awkwardly stumble through these ideas and try to talk about them as concepts. But thank you for being willing to show up. I know it takes a lot of people’s time and effort to do these sorts of things. And,  as an organization, we genuinely want to do better and be better. So thank you for helping us with that.

RONI JO: Have your listeners even just know who’s land they’re on right now. Learn about those people who’s land you’re on. That would be huge.

JEN: That’s awesome. Thank you for that. That’s a great starting point. A nice little baby step that should be easy enough for all of us to Google real quick. I appreciate all of you. Thank you so much for coming.

RONI JO: Thank you.

SAM: Yeah, thank you.

CELESTE: Thank you so much, Jen.

JEN: Thanks for joining us here In the Den. While we have you, we want to let you know about the inaugural LUV Conference coming up this October 18th and 19th in Salt Lake City, Utah. The conference is all about learning and connecting and creating a more supportive environment for LGBTQ+ individuals and their families. Get more information at www.luvwithoutlimits.org . That’s L-U-V- without limits.org. Or find the link in the show notes under the links from the show. We hope to see you there.

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