No Climate Justice Without 2SLGBTQQIA+ Rights
To the 2SLGBTQQIA+ youth, change-makers, innovators, and spiritual liberators out there—we are you, and we stand in solidarity with you.
As Pride Month comes to a close, we have been reflecting on the role that we and our other 2SLGBTQQIA+ relations play in the climate justice movement, the interconnectedness of gender oppression, the current climate crisis, and how climate justice is inherently tied to 2SLGBTQQIA+ rights.
2SLGBTQQIA+ Rights are Human Rights
Earlier this month one of the largest 2SLGBTQQIA+ civil rights organizations across Turtle Island, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), declared a state of emergency for the first time in more than 40 years. This is a response to the more than 530 Anti-2SLGBTQQIA+ legislative bills that have been passed in the so-called United States—and this extends beyond the medicine line. As more anti-2SLGBTQQIA+ demonstration events have already been recorded in so-called Canada in 2023 than in all of 2021, it is clear that the violence and hate experienced by our relatives is not exaggerated, it is real and has tangible and life-threatening impacts.
“No climate justice without human rights” - this statement rang out by crowds of civil society at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) COP27 in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt this past November and made a strong appearance in the People’s Declaration, written by representatives from International Indigenous Peoples’, Women and Gender, Youth, Workers, and Environmental organizations.
Human rights and climate justice are intrinsically woven together—the fight for one is a fight for all. Our commitment to a just and healthy world is dependent on the collective community safety and care of our Mother Earth and of each other. Our vision for a world with sovereign and thriving Indigenous Peoples and cultures, leading climate justice for all, cannot be achieved if we do not see the inherent value of life and our interdependence.
Gender oppression and its continued rise—at the root—is caused by colonization. The suppression of our 2SLGBTQQIA+ relations has long been connected to the exploitation of land and water, body autonomy, and Indigenous sovereignty. As the state continues to uphold and permit a colonial mindset, it also contributes to the breakdown of our collective wisdom and connection to the land. This rift in the balance of life, our symbiotic relationships, and inherent gifts is the driving force toward the climate crisis.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports have recognized that support for gender-just community conservation alongside restoration of ecosystems, including strengthening land sovereignty, is one of the most effective ways to mitigate climate change. There is no climate justice without human rights—and until our 2SLGBTQQIA+ relatives have basic human rights, there will be no true climate justice.
When we begin to uplift community-based, gender-just approaches, and their connection to Mother Earth’s liberation, we unveil the truth of colonialism—tackling the root cause of the climate crisis.
““They see us as inferior, and they see the land as a commodity. That’s their perception. The violence that’s done against us and the violence against the Earth are connected.” ”
Gender Binary is Based in Colonialism
Prior to contact, gender and sexual variance among Indigenous Peoples were accepted, celebrated, and inherently valued. The Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest Destiny imposed on Indigenous Peoples was, and continues to be, used as justification for colonization and genocide. Our ancestral understandings of the interconnection between cultural and spiritual roles that Two Spirit, Trans, and gender nonconforming people have within communities are difficult to translate to dominant and colonial languages. The reality of this must be admitted as we acknowledge the thousands of individual, and distinct Indigenous nations that have experienced genocide, and as a result, loss of these languages and cultural understandings.
The term Two-Spirit was coined in 1990 at the Third Annual Inter-tribal Native American, First Nations, Gay and Lesbian American Conference in Winnipeg by Fisher River Cree Nation member, Myra Laramee. “Niizh Manidoowag” (translating to “Two-Spirits”), is of the Anishinaabemowin (Anishinaabe language) and used often as an umbrella term to describe a person with the ability to embody both masculine and feminine spirits.
“There is no one way to prescribe usage of the term [Two-Spirit] … There is no one way to define the term Two-Spirit. Two-Spirit people and their roles predate colonial impositions, expectations, and assumptions of sex, gender, and sexual orientation. Where colonial worldviews often frame concepts as linear, compartmentalized, categorical, and hierarchical, Indigenous worldviews tend to be understood as non-linear, reciprocal, (w)holistic, relational, and independent of Eurocentric perspectives and framings. As such, identifying as two-spirit is a decolonizing act of resistance in and of itself.”
“Two-spirit identity is about circling back to where we belong, reclaiming, reinventing and redefining our beginnings, our roots, our communities, our support systems and our collective and individual selves.”
As we look to the land for guidance, there is so much wisdom to gain. We see the fluidity, variance, and interconnection of life among our kin filled with diversity and unique gifts—all vital for surviving and thriving. Each species holds a different role, working together and honouring each other. Every part of an ecosystem contributes to the collective, offering unique and equal value to sustaining life for their future generations. Though each one is vastly different, they are able to coexist, recognize, and prosper from all the shared gifts they each carry to create a flourishing, interdependent community.
“… we weren’t ‘queer’, we were normal. Many of our societies normalized gender variance, variance in sexual orientation and all different kinds of relationships as long as they were consistent with our basic values of consent, transparency, respect, and reciprocity. We weren’t “queer” until settlers came into our communities and positioned the “queer” parts of our relationships and societies as defiant, abnormal and sinful.”
“How the Two-Spirit identity works as a form of decolonization is that it not only serves as a specific cultural connection to a spiritual role, but also removes Gay, Lesbian, and often male and female notions from Queer Indigenous people’s lives. It instead directly replaces these social constructions built by the settler state with historical tribal knowledge.”
The act of expressing Indigenous understandings and embodiments of varying, fluid genders and sexuality is inherently an act of decolonization, and Two-Spirited peoples have always had the ability to see past these limitations of binary ways of thinking.
Collective Liberation
It is vital that as we work to decolonize our climate action efforts, we understand the ways in which colonization, capitalism, and the patriarchy have been strategically embedded in history since contact. The narratives that continue to be, and that have always been, pushed forward by colonial capitalism only serve a fascist, and supremacist society that does not inherently value life.
Our ancestors fought for our survival and it is our responsibility to uphold that duty to them, and to future generations to fully embody ourselves in understanding decolonizing community and spiritual roles. Mother Earth’s liberation—and ultimately our liberation—depends on community-led solutions rooted in Healing Justice that acknowledges all our relatives as essential to our efforts, and is committed to honouring all identities of life. We are stronger together.
About the Contributors
This blog was drafted as a collaborative effort, led by Katie Wilson and supported by ICA team members: Rosalyn Boucha, Jamie Bourque-Blyan, Ashley Nadjiwon, Angel Brant, and Haley Kootenhayoo—informed by personal understandings, personal cultural teachings, and collective conversations.
Katie Wilson (she/her) is a queer, Indigenous (Cree, Saulteaux) aunty born and raised in Treaty Four Territory (Regina, SK) where she currently resides. Growing up in the prairies of Saskatchewan, her parents originate from Cowessess First Nation (Mother), and Peguis First Nation (Father).