رونوشت کامل Jeremy Dutcher and 2 Spirited People of the 1st Nations

in Newfoundland, 30 00:03:15,810 --> 00:03:18,300 and then later, I talked with him while he was sitting on the 31 00:03:18,320 --> 00:03:22,800 back fire escape at his home in Montreal. This is that conversation. 32 00:03:23,700 --> 00:03:27,880 I was recently listening to the interview you gave after the live concert 33 00:03:27,930 --> 00:03:32,000 at the NPR station in Seattle... At KEXP? Yeah, yeah. And I loved 34 00:03:32,030 --> 00:03:34,300 how you described what you do. Oh God, what did I say? 35 00:03:34,340 --> 00:03:36,560 I play the piano and do some singing. 36 00:03:38,820 --> 00:03:41,040 It's a bit of an undersell. Well, let me tell you. 37 00:03:41,110 --> 00:03:42,500 No, let me tell you, because we have 38 00:03:43,640 --> 00:03:47,840 thing called the law of humility. This is like a fundamental teaching, 39 00:03:47,970 --> 00:03:50,620 and so I have to honor that all the time. So, 40 00:03:50,650 --> 00:03:55,660 yeah, sometimes I minimize maybe what I do or... What did I say 41 00:03:55,690 --> 00:03:58,030 again? I play some piano and do some singing? You said, 42 00:03:58,070 --> 00:04:00,430 I play the piano and do some singing. That might be my new 43 00:04:00,470 --> 00:04:05,260 bio line. Okay. I wanted to start by talking about your own journey 44 00:04:05,330 --> 00:04:09,260 in coming to terms with your queer identity meeting your indigenous identity. 45 00:04:09,410 --> 00:04:13,010 Oh, Daniel, you're starting with the small questions, eh? Just the easy 46 00:04:13,040 --> 00:04:17,000 over the plate ones. Well, no. I mean, specifically in terms of, 47 00:04:17,380 --> 00:04:21,650 as you talked about before, the challenges for queer and indigenous youth 48 00:04:21,690 --> 00:04:26,520 generally. Yeah. Well, I mean, because it's such a critical time 49 00:04:27,300 --> 00:04:32,110 being a youth and trying to figure out how you fit, 50 00:04:32,280 --> 00:04:35,400 where you fall in this big human story, 51 00:04:36,660 --> 00:04:40,890 I always think about the limits of our language are the limits of 52 00:04:40,920 --> 00:04:45,710 our mind. Until we can name it, until we can speak about it, 53 00:04:45,820 --> 00:04:49,650 we can't really understand it. So it wasn't until I started to meet 54 00:04:49,700 --> 00:04:54,850 other people that sat at that intersection between indigenous identity and 55 00:04:54,900 --> 00:04:59,240 LGBT identity, 2 spirit people, that it really kind of came home to 56 00:04:59,260 --> 00:05:02,390 me that, yeah, there's a way to integrate all of you. 57 00:05:02,470 --> 00:05:05,220 You don't have to choose. You don't have to separate yourself. 58 00:05:05,640 --> 00:05:10,040 In the KEXP interview, you talked about respecting the teaching of balance. 59 00:05:10,120 --> 00:05:13,990 This feels like that. Right. When we think about balance and when we 60 00:05:14,020 --> 00:05:20,290 talk about balance, I think as middle people, as people who sit maybe 61 00:05:20,330 --> 00:05:24,580 even in between genders, we have a lot to offer the human family 62 00:05:25,040 --> 00:05:29,000 when it comes to balance, because so many of us have those balance 63 00:05:29,080 --> 00:05:33,910 of the masculine and the feminine inside of ourselves. And so I think 64 00:05:33,940 --> 00:05:38,760 it's a beautiful gift that our queer kin can offer to everyone, 65 00:05:38,880 --> 00:05:45,470 is to seek that balance and find... So there's this... We're reaching towards 66 00:05:45,510 --> 00:05:49,190 each other, I think, all the time. Everybody. But I think it's the 67 00:05:49,220 --> 00:05:53,350 queer people, it's the middle people that have that gift. We're born with 68 00:05:53,360 --> 00:06:00,560 that. And it's the world of homophobia and transphobia and dogmatism that 69 00:06:00,580 --> 00:06:03,920 takes us away from that teaching. And so what is it that we 70 00:06:03,960 --> 00:06:10,770 offer, practically offer the human family? The truth is that queer people 71 00:06:10,820 --> 00:06:16,030 are in every facet of every way of being, and we've hidden that 72 00:06:16,060 --> 00:06:19,760 to think like, oh, gay only looks like this, or like lesbians only 73 00:06:19,800 --> 00:06:23,870 look like this, and we've narrowed ourselves into these boxes. That's why 74 00:06:23,900 --> 00:06:27,730 I like using the word queer, 'cause I think it's this beautiful umbrella 75 00:06:27,740 --> 00:06:32,530 that can hold us all and all of those diverse experiences within us. 76 00:06:32,680 --> 00:06:36,410 But it is that because... And that's our strength. It's because 77 00:06:36,950 --> 00:06:43,330 rainbow people are coming from every nation, every occupation, every vocation, 78 00:06:43,830 --> 00:06:49,210 every denomination. It's like we are everywhere. And so when we come together 79 00:06:50,150 --> 00:06:55,610 as those people from every corner, those conversations that we can have 80 00:06:55,950 --> 00:07:01,950 are really generative and are really unique. So I think that's one of 81 00:07:02,050 --> 00:07:06,560 our collectivity and how we come together outside of our cultural community 82 00:07:06,640 --> 00:07:11,190 or religious community. We find our own way together. And I think through 83 00:07:11,230 --> 00:07:16,010 that we weave our experiences in a way that makes us really strong 84 00:07:16,080 --> 00:07:21,440 as a community. So you talk about the middle people, and the middle 85 00:07:21,470 --> 00:07:24,620 is something, a place we can be born into, but is it something 86 00:07:24,660 --> 00:07:28,100 that we should be all striving toward? I think it goes back to 87 00:07:28,720 --> 00:07:33,740 that understanding of balance, that when we are too much in one direction, 88 00:07:33,820 --> 00:07:37,090 we're outside of the truth. So I think 89 00:07:37,940 --> 00:07:41,160 where we can offer that light to people is to say that there's 90 00:07:41,210

--> 00:07:44,800 beauty in the middle and there's a lot of... If we're only listening 91 00:07:44,830 --> 00:07:48,820 to either end of that spectrum, then we're really missing so much in 92 00:07:48,850 --> 00:07:54,810 between. So I think we just have to keep insisting on our middleness 93 00:07:55,150 --> 00:08:01,630 or our refusal to choose. I think those non binary kin are some 94 00:08:01,650 --> 00:08:05,160 of the most brave because they're really stepping outside of a whole system 95 00:08:05,210 --> 00:08:10,020 that we've constructed as humans. Something that came up when we talked 96 00:08:10,170 --> 00:08:14,460 when you were on Fogo Island, was the most basic binary to smash 97 00:08:14,570 --> 00:08:17,740 was the binary of knowing and not knowing? Yeah. 98 00:08:19,280 --> 00:08:22,990 Yes, exactly. Right, or good and evil is another one of those. 99 00:08:23,070 --> 00:08:27,850 We have this tendency to boil down our experience into this and that 100 00:08:27,900 --> 00:08:32,040 and black and white and good and evil and those binaries. 101 00:08:32,120 --> 00:08:35,100 I think we're in a time when, and it is those non binary 102 00:08:35,130 --> 00:08:39,210 people that are leading the way and showing us that actually to choose 103 00:08:39,250 --> 00:08:44,440 another way is a very valid choice and maybe the most valid choice. 104 00:08:45,820 --> 00:08:49,110 That's another gift that we offer to people. Something else that we talked 105 00:08:49,120 --> 00:08:53,430 about in that Fogo conversation was the use of 2S in the LGBTQ 106 00:08:53,520 --> 00:08:58,210 acronym. So when considering the expansiveness of two spiritedness, that 107 00:08:58,240 --> 00:09:03,950 usage can be reductive? Yeah, definitely. I think there's 108 00:09:04,740 --> 00:09:09,280 this tendency to be reductive when we want to be inclusive. 109 00:09:09,420 --> 00:09:12,710 So we say, oh, well, we really want to do 2 spirit work, 110 00:09:12,740 --> 00:09:17,540 and we want to include indigenous people in this LGBT work we're doing. 111 00:09:18,080 --> 00:09:21,180 So we put a 2S in our acronym, 112 00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:27,060 which is, it's a symbol. But if it's not backed up by real 113 00:09:27,520 --> 00:09:33,910 consideration and work, I feel like it loses the spirit of the gesture. 114 00:09:34,250 --> 00:09:38,810 So I hope that we can go past tokenism and really start to 115 00:09:38,830 --> 00:09:44,080 work together. But in my mind, it all comes down to relationships and 116 00:09:44,110 --> 00:09:46,690 relationship building. And if we're not actually going 117 00:09:48,550 --> 00:09:54,720 to where indigenous people are, coming to our gatherings, showing up... 118 00:09:54,730 --> 00:09:58,930 I always say, anywhere in North America, anywhere on Twitter island that 119 00:09:58,960 --> 00:10:02,380 you go, you go to any major city, and you're gonna be close 120 00:10:02,400 --> 00:10:05,510 to a reservation. You're gonna be close to a place where native people 121 00:10:05,560 --> 00:10:09,080 gather. So I think it's really important for all of us, 122 00:10:09,230 --> 00:10:13,600 even newcomers who just arrived here, to go get to know your neighbors, 123 00:10:13,610 --> 00:10:16,820 get to know the people of this place. And in our languages that 124 00:10:16,860 --> 00:10:20,530 come from this land, there's a lot of teachings and understandings that 125 00:10:20,560 --> 00:10:25,600 I think can benefit all of humanity. And 2 spirit, and that middle 126 00:10:25,610 --> 00:10:28,990 path is one of those ways, I think. So if you want to 127 00:10:29,030 --> 00:10:32,790 be an ally, it's got to go further than just speaking it. We 128 00:10:32,810 --> 00:10:35,690 gotta actually show up for each other and get to know each other. 129 00:10:37,670 --> 00:10:41,500 After the break, we'll meet Jeremy's changemaker. This is Queer Joy, 130 00:10:41,570 --> 00:10:45,540 celebrating the champions and changemakers of the 2024 PTP Pink Awards, 131 00:10:45,580 --> 00:11:00,070 and I'm Daniel MacIvor. The 2024 PTP Pink Awards was made possible by 132 00:11:00,110 --> 00:11:04,350 the generous support of our sponsors. And we are deeply grateful for the 133 00:11:04,370 --> 00:11:09,260 generosity of our title sponsor, Deciem, The Abnormal Beauty Company. Thanks 134 00:11:09,300 --> 00:11:12,690 to Sara Fromstein and the entire Deciem team. 135 00:11:17,730 --> 00:11:21,780 Welcome back to Queer Joy. I'm Daniel MacIvor. And this is Jeremy Dutcher. 136 00:11:21,820 --> 00:11:26,950 At the 2024 PTP Pink Awards. When I first moved to this place, 137 00:11:27,120 --> 00:11:30,360 my mother, she said, now when you go, go meet the native people. 138 00:11:30,470 --> 00:11:32,650 She's like, that's the first thing you do when you go somewhere new. 139 00:11:32,690 --> 00:11:36,950 You go meet your new hosts. And so I started to look into 140 00:11:37,250 --> 00:11:41,770 native organizations here in the city. Even just to see the name of 141 00:11:41,810 --> 00:11:48,210 this organization on a poster is a statement of self determination that 142 00:11:48,230 --> 00:11:53,720 we are here and that queer people, 2 spirit people, LGBT indigenous people, 143 00:11:53,910 --> 00:11:56,890 have a place in our community. I heard this beautiful quote once. 144 00:11:56,930 --> 00:12:00,960 It said, the place where discriminations meet is a dangerous place to live. 145 00:12:01,040 --> 00:12:04,430 And so when we talk about people living at the intersection of queer 146 00:12:04,460 --> 00:12:07,930 identity, of Indigenous identity, those are people that need a lot of support. 147 00:12:08,010 --> 00:12:12,900 And this organization particularly has been a light. And so when I first 148 00:12:12,940 --> 00:12:15,010 went to that organization, it was like the first week I moved here, 149 00:12:15,040 --> 00:12:17,320 I was like in my early

20s. I was super nervous. 150 00:12:17,350 --> 00:12:20,960 I knew one person in town, but I went to that organization and 151 00:12:21,050 --> 00:12:24,530 there was about a staff of less than 10. And I was just 152 00:12:24,560 --> 00:12:29,860 talking to the organization tonight. They have more than 80 staff now. 153 00:12:29,980 --> 00:12:36,270 So this is a... Yeah. I don't wanna talk too much. 154 00:12:36,310 --> 00:12:39,950 I wanna just invite them up. Please welcome tonight our representatives 155 00:12:40,110 --> 00:12:45,140 from 2 spirit People of the First Nations. Give it up. 2 Spirited 156 00:12:45,180 --> 00:12:49,070 People of the 1st Nations is a Tkaronto, or colonially Toronto, 157 00:12:49,150 --> 00:12:52,880 based organization that describes itself as helping two spirited people 158 00:12:52,930 --> 00:12:56,930 to nurture and grow within their sacred roles and celebrate their strengths 159 00:12:56,960 --> 00:13:00,800 and to provide physical, emotional, mental and spiritual advocacy and support 160 00:13:00,940 --> 00:13:04,650 to community members who are facing the effects of historic and ongoing 161 00:13:04,740 --> 00:13:09,160 colonial violence so that they may thrive within their communities and nations. 162 00:13:09,320 --> 00:13:13,550 Multidisciplinary 2 spirit artist Tyler J. Sloane spoke with 2 Spirited 163 00:13:13,590 --> 00:13:16,950 People of the 1st Nations at their office in downtown Toronto. 0:13:17.2Denise 164 00:13:17,001 --> 00:13:20,310 D. McLeod: Hi, my name is Denise B. McLeod. I'm the Board President 165 00:13:20,420 --> 00:13:25,600 of 2 Spirited People of the 1st Nations. I am Anishinaabe from Sagamok Anishnawbek 166 00:13:25,610 --> 00:13:31,100 First Nations. I am Eagle Clan. I use she and her pronoun. 167 00:13:31,230 --> 00:13:34,830 My name is Keith McCrady. I also go by Mahogany Makwa. 168 00:13:34,900 --> 00:13:41,020 I'm from Biinjitiwaabik Zaaging Anishinaabek. I'm Ojibwe and Cree. I'm part 169 00:13:41,030 --> 00:13:44,510 of the Bear Clan. And my role here at 2 Spirited People of 170 00:13:44,520 --> 00:13:48,810 the 1st Nations is the executive director. I have no preferred pronouns, 171 00:13:48,850 --> 00:13:52,750 which is very different than I go by all pronouns. It's a way 172 00:13:52,780 --> 00:13:57,580 to honor me knowing that English isn't our chosen language. Tyler asked 173 00:13:57,620 --> 00:14:00,600 Keith and Denise how they felt about Jeremy choosing 2 Spirited People of 174 00:14:00,610 --> 00:14:04,380 the 1st Nations as his changemaker. Well, when I first heard this, 175 00:14:04,420 --> 00:14:07,850 I was obviously quite excited. I'm actually a huge music fan, 176 00:14:07,920 --> 00:14:12,090 so I was quite excited because I own their vinyl. But also one 177 00:14:12,120 --> 00:14:16,090 of the key things for an organization is to have unrestricted funds, 178 00:14:16,160 --> 00:14:20,340 and it's pretty important to be able to have

access for self determination. 179 00:14:20,394 --> 00:14:24,980 0:14:21.5Denise D. McLeod: I know Jeremy from community, and I love their 180 00:14:25,040 --> 00:14:31,780 music and also own their albums. And Jeremy is such a huge supporter 181 00:14:31,880 --> 00:14:36,970 and very well spoken, outgoing advocate for 2 Spirited People and for the 182 00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:42,140 Indigenous community as a whole. So Jeremy said something six or seven years 183 00:14:42,180 --> 00:14:47,470 ago at this point, and it was, be ready for the Indigenous renaissance. 184 00:14:47,640 --> 00:14:54,250 And I remember thinking like 1, yes, and 2, I used that sentence 185 00:14:54,350 --> 00:14:57,920 so much when I was teaching and talking about how all of the 186 00:14:57,950 --> 00:15:02,610 things I'm teaching you or all of the trauma that Indigenous peoples have 187 00:15:02,650 --> 00:15:07,620 experienced, it's also, we're also thriving. We're also building and making 188 00:15:07,670 --> 00:15:13,140 and creating. And Indigenous folks are often painted as we're very old time 189 00:15:13,190 --> 00:15:17,940 or primitive, or we don't have the same skills to be artists as 190 00:15:17,990 --> 00:15:23,290 the West. And Jeremy took all of the things that the West taught 191 00:15:23,350 --> 00:15:25,950 them and blew it out of the water and made it... 192 00:15:26,040 --> 00:15:31,280 The first album is so important. I'm not Mi'kmaq. I don't speak the 193 00:15:31,310 --> 00:15:36,010 Mi'kmaq language. I know that Anishinaabe is under the same language umbrella, 194 00:15:36,150 --> 00:15:41,940 but it feels, it felt new and exciting. I just think about that 195 00:15:41,990 --> 00:15:47,330 time, really important time, where the renaissance is happening in this 196 00:15:47,350 --> 00:15:51,630 Indigenous renaissance. That first album of Jeremy's that Denise is talking 197 00:15:51,660 --> 00:15:56,470 about is 'Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa', that Jeremy's website describes as 198 00:15:56,560 --> 00:16:01,010 a post classical rearrangement of traditional music that Jeremy rediscovered 199 00:16:01,030 --> 00:16:05,400 at the Canadian Museum of History from 1907. These were wax cylinders of 200 00:16:05,430 --> 00:16:09,840 his ancestors singing forgotten songs of the Wolastoqey Nation. The Guardian 201 00:16:09,880 --> 00:16:14,900 describes the album as avant garde neo opera. It was heralded internationally, 202 00:16:14,990 --> 00:16:18,770 won Jeremy his first Polaris Prize, and set the stage for Jeremy working 203 00:16:18,810 --> 00:16:24,170 with colonial perceived urban notions like opera, inside explorations of 204 00:16:24,190 --> 00:16:27,020 his own ancestors and land based culture, and as Denise said, 205 00:16:27,100 --> 00:16:30,410 blowing the old ideas out of the water. Keith had this to say 206 00:16:30,430 --> 00:16:35,440 about Jeremy's two sided perspective. Finding ways to connect with the urban 207 00:16:35,510 --> 00:16:40,770 community, but also still connect with the Indigenous community is a challenge. 208 00:16:40,810 --> 00:16:44,640 And so, I'm really happy that someone like Jeremy could say, 209 00:16:44,710 --> 00:16:47,650 you get to do whatever you want, be whoever you want. 210 00:16:47,810 --> 00:16:51,230 You could pick things that you like of the Western world, 211 00:16:51,280 --> 00:16:55,130 but you can still honor your own traditions and your own language and 212 00:16:55,160 --> 00:16:59,210 your own values, so. So part of the Indigenous renaissance is embracing 213 00:16:59,280 --> 00:17:03,430 what Indigenous people have called two eyed seeing, living inside Indigenous 214 00:17:03,470 --> 00:17:06,900 knowledge and using what's useful from the colonization project to move 215 00:17:06,920 --> 00:17:11,210 forward inside this system. And part of that moving forward is understanding 216 00:17:11,250 --> 00:17:16,600 how two spiritedness exists inside the LGBTQ acronym. Not only is there 217 00:17:16,620 --> 00:17:20,540 a question about reductiveness and false equivalencies, two spiritedness 218 00:17:20,590 --> 00:17:24,620 is a broader idea than strictly sexuality or gender, as people also argue 219 00:17:24,670 --> 00:17:29,960 transness is, and two spiritedness itself is a fluid idea. Denise had this 220 00:17:29,980 --> 00:17:33,760 to say about her journey. 0:17:31.8Denise D. McLeod: My understanding of 221 00:17:33,800 --> 00:17:40,180 my own two spiritedness, it has been an evolution. I always knew that 222 00:17:40,210 --> 00:17:46,540 I was queer and understood 2 spirit to be a role in community. 223 00:17:46,620 --> 00:17:51,060 And I was, at the time when I started figuring out my gender 224 00:17:51,130 --> 00:17:55,830 and my identity, my sexual identity, I knew that 2 spirit was 225 00:17:56,430 --> 00:17:59,970 a role within community that I didn't want to pick up. That wasn't 226 00:18:00,020 --> 00:18:03,810 my... I did not want to do that right away. And I was 227 00:18:03,850 --> 00:18:07,710 like, I don't know if I'm ready for this responsibility. And also understanding 228 00:18:07,760 --> 00:18:11,340 that 2 spirit means something different to everyone and that's okay. 229 00:18:11,380 --> 00:18:13,950 Like there are no wrong teachings, there are no bad teachings. 230 00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:18,160 There are only teachings. And so for me, I do define myself as 231 00:18:18,190 --> 00:18:23,440 two spirited in a way that is more my sexuality based rather than 232 00:18:23,470 --> 00:18:28,100 my gender. And also understanding that over the last 10 ish years, 233 00:18:28,150 --> 00:18:31,920 there also have been other terms that have been started to be coined 234 00:18:31,990 --> 00:18:39,440 in English to define the intricate relationship between indigeneity and 235 00:18:39,470 --> 00:18:44,190 our queerness, that we have been told that it was always something to 236 00:18:44,200 --> 00:18:48,680 be ashamed of or that it didn't exist prior to colonization when we 237 00:18:48,680 --> 00:18:54,230 know that's absolutely incorrect. And I really enjoy that we are starting 238 00:18:54,260 --> 00:19:00,020 to find different ways to identify ourselves as queer, gay, lesbian, 239 00:19:00,170 --> 00:19:04,800 trans, indigenous people. As I said off the top, Jeremy was the first 240 00:19:04,840 --> 00:19:07,360 champion to come on board with the Pink Awards. He was the first 241 00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:11,310 to say yes. With his belief in us came confidence, and helped us 242 00:19:11,340 --> 00:19:14,960 to realize a very special event, a very special moment of joy for 243 00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:19,700 our community. Thanks for walking with us, Jeremy. Thanks to Amelia Moses 244 00:19:19,730 --> 00:19:24,160 in Montreal and Tyler J. Sloane in Toronto. Please join us for our 245 00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:28,920 next episode with warrior activist Latoya Nugent and her changemaker, Among 246 00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:33,340 Friends. I'll leave the last words to Denise and Keith. This has been 247 00:19:33,370 --> 00:19:45,770 Queer Joy. Thanks for listening. 0:19:45.0Denise D. McLeod: I introduce 248 00:19:45,820 --> 00:19:49,030 myself in the language so that our ancestors know that we are still 249 00:19:49,090 --> 00:19:57,590 here. My government name is Denise McLeod and I am the Board President, 250 00:19:57,650 --> 00:20:01,370 and I'm honored to share the stage with Keith, the Executive Director. 251 00:20:04,870 --> 00:20:09,760 So I'm Keith and I'm really happy to be here. So since I've 252 00:20:09,770 --> 00:20:13,390 been at this agency, I haven't really had a chance. It's been six 253 00:20:13,430 --> 00:20:16,000 years and there's been a lot of growth and a lot of change 254 00:20:16,050 --> 00:20:18,830 and I haven't had a chance to be proud. And so I'm very 255 00:20:18,870 --> 00:20:28,050 proud and I'm proud of our community. I'm also proud to have people 256 00:20:28,100 --> 00:20:32,560 to look up to like Jeremy who really understand what it takes to 257 00:20:32,680 --> 00:20:36,540 be successful in a system that was built to make us fail. 258 00:20:37,640 --> 00:20:41,470 I can't pretend that this was made for us. And we're gonna still 259 00:20:41,500 --> 00:20:43,730 thrive, and we're gonna say, if you wanna work with us, 260 00:20:43,780 --> 00:20:46,610 great. If you don't, just get out of the way. Right? 'Cause we're 261 00:20:46,620 --> 00:20:49,600 really ready to do the work. And so I just appreciate everyone here 262 00:20:49,640 --> 00:21:06,940 tonight that honors and respects that. Queer Joy is a production of Pink 263 00:21:06,970 --> 00:21:07,440 Triangle Press.