Two spirits with one goal: Acceptance

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Planned organization will help gay and lesbian Aboriginals in the Thunder Bay region

February 23, 2006: Volume 33 #4 

When his friend, a gay man, killed himself last November, Lance Mainville knew he had to do something.

“Gay people are very scared to come out on the reserve,” said the 38-year-old gay-rights activist. “In some way I feel responsible for his death.”

The Couchiching First Nation band member grew up openly gay on a reserve. He said it was an uncomfortable experience.

“When I was living back home in a relationship with a non-Native man, I had my home windows smashed and my vehicle trashed,” he said. “I couldn’t even walk down the road to visit a friend without getting pelted with snowballs by the kids in my own neighbourhood.”

Mainville described the overall environment on-reserve as being intolerant and, at times, hostile.

“I strongly believe this is typical of reserves,” he said.

In the wake of his friend’s death, Mainville is sad, but hopeful.

“He phoned me from the remote reserve he lived on and begged me to let him move in with me,” Mainville, who lives in Thunder Bay, recalled. “I didn’t have my own place at that time, so I couldn’t help him. He was stuck there.”

Shortly after their telephone exchange, Mainville received word of the suicide.

“I guess he felt he couldn’t get out,” he said. “His death is what prompted me to work on changing the situation.”

Shortly after his friend’s death, Mainville approached Ontario Health Advocacy Initiative for help. After three months, Mainville was co-hosting a two-day workshop with the advocacy initiative on getting much-needed help and support for Aboriginal gays and lesbians.

“It has taken us all this time to organize this event,” Mainville said.

Co-organizer Michelle Richmond-Saravia, a health advocacy developer with Ontario Health Advocacy Initiative, said time spent organizing the workshop on awareness has been a learning experience for her.

“My program revolves around facilitating awareness, specifically around systemic oppression,” she said.

In doing preparatory research for the event, which was held Feb. 14-15 in Thunder Bay, Richmond-Saravia was surprised to learn that gay and lesbian people were represented and even respected at one time in First Nation culture.

“This was before European contact and, at that time, they were called two-spirited people,” she said. “The belief was that they embodied the spirits of both the male and female spirits. I also learned that two-spirited people were held in high regard.”

When Europeans arrived, Richmond-Saravia said two-spirited people were doubly oppressed over First Nations Peoples because of the added religious issue with their sexual orientation.

“They had to take their teachings underground where they have since remained,” she said.

By providing a safe learning environment for two-spirited individuals, family members of two-spirited people and teaching front line workers to be more accepting of others despite their sexual orientation, Richmond-Saravia hopes to foster an environment that reflects equality.

About 35 people attended the workshops, many of them gay and lesbian First Nations people.

On day 2, a panel discussion featuring gay and lesbians from different First Nations as well as front line workers from different organizations shared their experiences with visitors, Richmond-Saravia said.

“One woman, now an Elder, shared her story about when she came out on the reserve in 1988,” Richmond-Saravia said. “She was ganged up on and badly beaten by three women and two men. They told her she was a disgrace to her people and her culture. She talked about how, the only place she found support was in the gay and lesbian community and not in her home community.”

Mainville said a number of similar stories were shared over the two days. He also said the stories are very telling of a hostile environment for two-spirited people.

“I think the whole violence factor and the suicide factor are two big ones we addressed at our workshops,” he said.

Richmond-Saravia said the workshops, while providing a healthy and welcomed release for local Native gay and lesbian community members in which to share their stories and experiences, proved that there is much work still ahead.

“Thunder Bay, in its own right, is pretty isolated from other metropolitan centres and is behind in some respects when it comes to providing a safe and equality-based environment for the local gay and lesbian community,” she said. “In the news recently, we followed the story of a youth who was bullied by other kids in the school yard for being gay and wasn’t protected by the school system. They are only now implementing safeguards to change that.”

Awareness against homophobia in Thunder Bay is going to be a challenge in its own right, Richmond-Saravia predicted.

“And, until now, the First Nation gay and lesbian community has been completely left out,” she said.

While both advocates acknowledge the challenges ahead, Mainville and Richmond-Saravia said they are up to the task.

“I’ve already gotten calls asking to put on another workshop,” he said on day 2 of the workshops/panel discussions.

Mainville has put the wheels in motion to open an organization dedicated to helping Aboriginal gays and lesbians.

“It is going to be called Two-Spirited People of the Thunder Bay Region,” he said. “I’m doing it because I think two-spirited workshops have to be brought into the smaller communities to educate people.”

In the meantime, Mainville asks those who are gay or lesbian to be strong, to accept who they are and to be true and honest to themselves.

“There is hope and there is help out there,” he said.