NorthEast Two-Spirit Society

Spring Two-Spirit Times Available For Download

Download 2spirit_times_spring_07.pdf

Click the above link to download June's Issue of Two-Spirit Times. If you still can't view article, you might need the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Natives And AIDS Statistics By NativeOUT.com

NativeOUT put together this video presentation entitled "Red Ribbon Warriors" which contains the latests statistics regarding American Indian/Alaskan Native AIDS.
Check it out. And don't forget to check out NativeOUT for the latest news, photos, and merchandise for and about the two-spirit community.

Colonialism: the real ‘Apocalypto’

(Article about the widespread existence and wholesale destruction of historical two-spirit people by the European invaders, and a critique of Mel Gibson casting the invaders as saviors.  Note: in the publication Lavender & Red, Red refers to socialism, not Natives.)

Anti-gay, anti-trans Inquisition in the Americas

Lavender & red, part 87

By Leslie Feinberg

Published Jan 26, 2007  6:11 PM

From Indigenous oral histories, passed down through millennia, to the hostile accounts kept by colonial record keepers, a great deal of evidence exists to show that sex/gender variance and homosexuality were part of the fabric of early cooperative societies in the Americas—from pole to pole.

American-Indian adviser works to open minds, spread awareness

From The Daily Utah Cronicle

Issue date: 1/31/07 Section: News

By: Ana Breton

Media Credit: Lennie Mahler Student and American Indian Club member Terri Smith chats with Tony Shirley in his office on Tuesday.

Media Credit: Lennie Mahler Anthony Shirley organizes lunch with friends from the Counseling Center over the phone in his office in the Union on Tuesday.

Media Credit: Lennie Mahler Anthony Shirley, adviser for the Center for Ethnic Student Affairs program and the American Indian Club, teaches a Navajo language class in the Union Building on Tuesday morning.

There was no reason it had to turn sour.

Anthony Shirley was heading a panel discussion last year to help medical students understand the perspective of the potential patients they might encounter--homosexual patients.

Shirley said the panel went well. However, the paper feedback he received was another story. Several students wrote anonymous messages: "I will never treat people like you," one of them said. "After this, I will be selective on the people I treat."

Shirley, adviser for the Center for Ethnic Student Affairs, was shocked. From that day on, he vowed to help people become more open-minded so he would never have to see that type of feedback again.

It all began 13 years ago when Shirley left a Navajo reservation in Arizona to seek a college education, the third member in his family (along with his two sisters)--and one of only a few in his community--to do so.

It wasn't a difficult decision for him to make, considering that if he still lived there, he would most likely work a restaurant or janitorial job.

Finally leaving, however, was a complete culture shock for Shirley.

"It was shocking because the reservation was 'openly gay,' and I didn't know that the rest of the world was not," said Shirley, who is also the American-Indian adviser. "It really doesn't make a difference because they are just open to that."

Remembering Two-Spirits this Thanksgiving

OPINION Rev. Irene Monroe November 21, 2006

From In Newsweekly

As I prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday, I am reminded of the autumnal harvest time's spiritual significance. As a time of connectedness, I pause to acknowledge what I have to be thankful for. But I also reflect on the holiday as a time of remembrance - historical and familial.

Proud Spirits, An Article in Southern Voice Online

Proud spirits
Gay Native Americans balance ethnic, gay identities

By ZACK HUDSON
Friday, November 17, 2006

Harlen Pruden can walk the walk down the streets of New York, but to some of his neighbors, he’s ill equipped to talk the talk.

“People speak Spanish to me all the time, and I don’t know Spanish,” he says. “Then they get really upset with me when they have to speak to me in English. They think I’m turning my back on my culture.”

But as culture clashes go, Pruden is well versed.

“I have to say, ‘I’m not Spanish, I’m Indian,’” he says.

A Spirit of Belonging, Inside and Out

October 8, 2006

By JOHN LELAND

SEELEY LAKE, Mont.

ALISTAIR BANE went to his first weekend gathering five months ago and was so nervous that he barely participated. By the time of his second, last month, he had sewn his own outfit and was comfortable enough to dance in the powwow and the drag show.

“This has been a big thing for me,” said Mr. Bane, who is a mixed-blood Eastern Shawnee. “If somebody had talked to me when I was 16 and said people like me were once respected, my life might have been different.”

(Brian Rainforth, left, and Raven E. Heavy Runner at the Two-Spirit Gathering in Montana. Mr. Rainforth is Klamath; Mr. Heavy Runner is Blackfeet - Picture from Lynn Donaldson of The New York Times.)

Vintage Article: A Life Of Two-Spirits

Originally posted on Advocate.com on Nov. 15, 2005. Written by Kevin VanWanseele for Advocate Online. There are over 20 different websites which picked this story up and reprinted it. It just goes to show, if you're Indian and have something to say, WRITE! There are not enough of us documenting our history. Pick up a pen, boot up Microsoft Word, or even crank up the video camera. A-HO!

A life of two spirits  
  I’ve been   thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a gay man   and  native American. We were once revered on the   reservation. Can we find the  same respect again?

(Read the whole article here.)

Vintage Article: Rainbow and Red

This article, 'Rainbow and Red', was originally published online at InTheFray.com dated Dec. 6, 2004. The writer Emily Alpert received a GLAAD Media award for Online Journalism. NE2SS has come a long way since its founding days. Let's take a look back at what it was like when the society first started up...

“There was a time on this land in which we did have full equality,” he comments. “There was a gender analysis with an open acceptance of same-sex couples and relationships. There was a place for all of it, and I think that it’s a shame that it’s been ignored.” Pruden sees this history as crucial to current two-spirit identity. “There is a model there that can be reactivated, claimed and worked on”, he says, although he adds hastily, “There is no going back to a traditional model.”

HIV/AIDS Rising Among American Indians and Alaska Natives

WASHINGTON—Some 1,000 Native American community representatives, and federal, state and local health officials gathered in early May in Anchorage to address concerns over the growing incidence of HIV/AIDS among American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN).

Data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that the disease is a significant and rising problem in the Native American population, said Frank Canizales, MSW, a management analyst and HIV/AIDS coordinator for the Indian Health Service’s Division of Behavioral Health in Rockville, Md., as well as a federal government advisory member for the conference planning committee.

“But if you’re looking at the diagnosis of HIV/AIDS among [AI/AN] in the year 2001, [it] was 9.5 per 100,000, and it went up to 11.1 per 100,000 in 2004. So, it’s increasing each year,” Canizales advised. “One of the things with the increase is [that] the size of the population is affected much more severely, because we have a small population to begin with. So it becomes more significant.”