CREDIT: daily49er
While there can be a great amount of support for the LGBTQ2S+ community, there may be a lot of confusion on what the ‘2S’ exactly means.
Two Spirit stems from Indigenous culture and refers to someone who identifies for example, as having both a masculine and a feminine spirit but could also be both masculine or feminine, and is an umbrella term to describe their sexual, gender or spiritual identity.
Melissa Hood, with the spirit name Goddess Light White Eagle Woman is the founder and CEO of Children’s and Parents’ Empowerment (C.A.P.E TM), the Hood Advocacy and Education Movement. Since a young age, she identified as two spirit.
“I am part of the Eagle clan, and identified as two spirit as young as I would say about five years old, a very young age. I was molested by my biological uncle, as a baby while I was in diapers, and having been exposed to sexuality at a very young age, it matured me. It’s put me in a place of where do I fit in? I’ve always felt this complacent, and just knowing I like both men and women.”
Although Hood had a difficult environment in discovering her two spirit identity, there was also a pressure on diving into her heritage and culture.
“Having to know that not only my own sexuality, but also my heritage, my culture, my religion, it was always you have to think one European way. Now people are coming out as two spirit. To me, it’s the liking two sexes, I’m having the option of actually dating two options, and a healthy way of looking at sexuality.”
Hood has taken part in LGBTQ2s+ conferences with a petition about revising policy within education on a mass scale. One of the things Hood wants to bring awareness is the acceptability of sexuality and how it’s being taught.
“It’s still colonialist. It’s not as you know, culture-based adapted and there was a big issue with how we are exposing children to sex at a very young age. It’s very culture sensitive, and it’s in the sense wherein itself is a bigger curriculum. Sexuality can make or break an individual, and we look at suicides and a lot of the suicides extend from education and actually extend from our sexuality.”
CREDIT: The Canadian Encyclopedia
Fanshawe student Kelly Kakekagumic is one of many who are growing to learn their identity and exploring the comfort of two spirit.
“It’s the more you learn about my own culture, right? Some of that being just indigenous and learning more of when you start to question things. The more you learn more, you question the government, your ethnicity, you question your sexuality, spirituality, and more. Just the more stuff you learn, the more you start to question.”
With two spirit being an umbrealla term open to what the person seems fit, Kakekagumic shapes their own perception with identifying as two spirit.
“Two spirit can literally mean two genders that can be of two people. There could be two men in one, two women, or it could be a mixture, or there could be non binary genders. I think that’s what people need to be aware of when someone says two spirit that it doesn’t necessarily mean a boy and a girl. That just means there are just two spirits in there.”
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