Harlan Pruden on “What do you mean two-spirit doesn’t simply mean an LGBTQI+ Indigenous person?“

November 6 2020 Seminar Presentation Abstract: Many cultural traditions and practices of the peoples of Turtle Island have often been misrepresented or suppressed. The misrepresentation mainly occurred because the colonizers did not have a context to frame, understand and value these ways and the suppression, primarily, occurred because these ways went against the colonizer’s christian beliefs, a doctrine that ‘righteously’ justified the subjugation of Indigenous bodies and lands and was one of the underlying tenets of the residential/boarding schools and many other policies. This especially holds true for Indigenous[2] notions and practices of gender, gender-roles, gender expression, sex and sexuality. This presentation explores these concepts by featuring some of the sociohistorical documentation from a nation-specific standpoint while supplementing these records and narratives with a deconstructed colonial account(s). A brief overview is offered on how this burgeoning body of knowledge is used in th