Table Of ContentURBAN INDIGENOUS YOUTH
REFRAMING TWO-SPIRIT
This book offers insights from young trans, queer, and two-spirit Indigenous
people in Toronto who examine the breadth and depth of meanings that two-
spirit holds. Tracing the refusals and desires of these youth and their communi-
ties, Urban Indigenous Youth Reframing Two-Spirit expands critical conversations
on queerness, Indigeneity, and community and simultaneously troubles the
idea that articulating a definition of two-spirit is a worthwhile undertaking.
Beyond the expansion of these conversations, this book also seeks to empower
community members, educators, and young people—both Indigenous and non-
Indigenous—to better support the self-determination of trans, queer, and two-
spirit Indigenous youth. By including a research zine and community discussion
guidelines, Laing demonstrates the possibility of powerful change that comes
from Indigenous people creating spaces to share knowledge with one another.
Marie Laing is a Youth Leader with the Native Youth Sexual Health Network
in Toronto, Canada.
Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education
Series Editors: Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang
Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education
Mapping the Long View
edited by Linda Tuhiwai-Smith, Eve Tuck, and K. Wayne Yang
Applying Indigenous Research Methods
Storying with Peoples and Communities
edited by Sweeney Windchief and Timothy San Pedro
Indigenous Children’s Survivance in Public Schools
Leilani Sabzalian
Decolonizing Place in Early Childhood Education
Fikile Nxumalo
Education in Movement Spaces
Standing Rock to Chicago Freedom Square
edited by Alayna Eagle Shield, Django Paris, Rae Paris, and Timothy San Pedro
Urban Indigenous Youth Reframing Two-Spirit
Marie Laing
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Indigenous-and-Decolonizing-Studies-in-Education/book-series/IDSE
URBAN INDIGENOUS
YOUTH REFRAMING
TWO-SPIRIT
Marie Laing
First published 2021
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 Marie Laing
The right of Marie Laing to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Laing, Marie, 1992-author.
Title: Urban indigenous youth reframing two-spirit / Marie Laing.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020044763 (print) | LCCN 2020044764 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367556938 (hbk) | ISBN 9780367556884 (pbk) | ISBN
9781003094296 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Gay youth—Ontorio—Toronto. | Two spirit
people—Ontorio—Toronto. | Indigenous youth—Ontorio—Toronto. |
Indians of North America—Sexual behavior—Ontorio—Toronto.
Classification: LCC HQ76.3.C217 L35 2021 (print) | LCC HQ76.3.C217
(ebook) | DDC 305.23508909713/541—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020044763
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020044764
ISBN: 9780367556938 (hbk)
ISBN: 9780367556884 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003094296 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
CONTENTS
List of Figures vi
Acknowledgments vii
Artist Statement on the Cover Art viii
Abstract ix
Series Editors Introduction x
1 Introduction 1
2 The Emergence of Two-Spirit 16
3 Refusing the Question “What Does Two-Spirit Mean?” 39
4 Two-Spirit as a Hashtag and a Container 61
5 Roots of the Literal Definition 90
6 Needs and Desires 118
7 Conclusion 148
Appendix A: Two-Spirit: Conversations with Young
Two-Spirit, Trans, and Queer Indigenous People in Toronto 155
Appendix B: Community Discussion Guide 191
Index 194
FIGURES
4.1 Doug’s concept map 83
4.2 Fenris’s concept map 86
6.1 Sam’s concept map 143
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are many people without whom I would not have been able to complete
this book.
Thank you to all of my teachers and mentors who have helped me along
my academic journey. Thank you to Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang for believ-
ing in this book. Thank you to Alex Wilson for being a mentor and a leader in
two-spirit scholarship. Thank you to my Kanyen’kéha instructors Sakoieta and
Tewentahawitha for teaching me so much about the language.
Many thanks to Kaya Joan for the beautiful cover art. Thanks are also due to
all of the staff at Routledge who helped this book come to life.
During the completion of the research described in this book, I was privi-
leged to belong to a community of scholars at OISE whose camaraderie and
brilliance deeply impacted the work. I couldn’t have done it without you all. A
special thank you to Rebecca Beaulne-Stuebing for reminding me that rest is
best.
Thank you to my parents, my sister, my aunts and uncles, my grandparents,
my cousins, and my friends for your encouragement during this project. Endless
thanks to my wonderful partner Morgan. I love you.
This work only exists because of the fabulous trans, queer and two-spirit
Indigenous community here in Toronto. Huge thanks to all of my fellow com-
munity members who have expressed support for this work. Greatest thanks
to the two-spirit, queer and trans Indigenous aunties, uncles, cousins, elders,
grandparents and ancestors whose work has made my existence possible today.
Lastly, and most importantly, my deepest thanks to all of the research partici-
pants. Thank you for sharing your time and your brilliance with me. I cannot
properly express my gratitude for your generosity and patience with me as a
novice researcher. Nyawenkó:wa.
ARTIST STATEMENT
ON THE COVER ART
“I will be well” explores the intersections of the celestial (skyworld), the plant
world, and water world, and the medicines that they offer. In this work, I draw
upon teachings of Ohen:ton Karihwatehkwen, the words before all else, illus-
trating how everything is connected, and through acknowledging all my rela-
tions, I can align myself with wellness. I explore the healing aspect of this life
energy through colour and form, as well as overlaying the medicines, cedar, sage
and tobacco. This layering and scanning process speaks to the multiplicities of
healing, and how it is not a linear process.
Kaya Joan
ABSTRACT
Reader, we are going to have a conversation—a conversation about the word
two-spirit, and why you may or may not need to know all of what it means.
Urban Indigenous Youth Reframing Two-Spirit offers insights from young trans,
queer and two-spirit people in Toronto who examine the breadth and depth of
meanings that two-spirit holds. These youth assert that two-spirit is a container
for a wide array of meanings; for some, it is a term that affirms the value of
the traditions Indigenous people are creating in our present moment as future
ancestors, and for others, it is a placeholder until they retrieve words in their
Indigenous languages to describe their ways of being in the world. All of these
meanings co-exist, and none negates any other. Tracing the refusals and desires
of these youth and their communities, Urban Indigenous Youth Reframing Two-
Spirit challenges the practice of ascribing singular and homogenizing definitions
to the term two-spirit, and simultaneously complicates the idea that you, reader,
need to know what two-spirit means. This book is an intervention into the
legacy of colonial anthropological research on gender and sexuality diversity
among Indigenous peoples, and an affirmation of the brilliance of two-spirit,
trans and queer Indigenous communities. Instead of theories of change predi-
cated on the expansion of the academic canon, offered in these pages is the idea
that powerful change is made possible when Indigenous people create spaces to
share our knowledge with one another.
These are the ideas to which participants redirected our interviews; a set of
ideas that is predicated upon the central fact that two-spirit, trans, and queer
communities are complex and vibrant sites of agency and change-making.
