Transcript of Why we need gender fluidity | Nicholas Metcalf | TEDxUMN

[Music] hello everybody my name is Changi which means yellow Hawk I'm an enrolled member of the Rose patsu tribe I'm sangat I'm one of the burnt thigh people and I'm toped one of the things I want to talk to you today about is being toped it's a cultural concept it's a cultural teaching in who how we sort of are in the world gay and lesbian folks and Indigenous tribes have been celebrated for many many centuries long before America was created and when America came came along um I always sort of find I always tell folks that's like people were living here already and so it's important to remember that there were thriving societies here long before America was created and I'm one of them um two spiritedness it's an embodiment of male and female identity it's an indigenous concept um one of the things I do want to say is that it's a Sacred Space we was one of our more famous two spirit folks um will Rosco studied her in the late 1800s um an anthropologist she's famous because she met Grover CLE President Cleveland and the zi manw Woman by Will Rosco and they did not discover she was a man until later in her life in order to understand the sort of concept of two spiritedness I need you to sort of step away from sort of American culture and how you sort of view and identify gender and sexuality and all those sorts of things in order to look at Native culture from that point of view because one of the things as I prepared for the talk today it was really difficult because folks really need to sort of step into a indigenous worldview to understand that everything is sacred and everything has use and the Creator makes no mistake and from our tribal communities of the 566 tribal communities in this country everybody most everybody has a two-spirited person and in our languages we actually have folks in my language I'm known as a win I'm a third gendered person um and one of the things for us we're story we're storytellers we're sacred we teach sacred ceremonies where the person that could go between men and women so we're sort of the bridge builder and a lot of our creation stories talk about two spirited people coming to save the world in 1990 um a group of Native activists gain lesbian activists coin the term two spiritedness to sort of combat the idea that in anthropology we're known as badar which means male prostitute or slave and so these are some images of two spirited people that I know and love and so one of the things for us is that Reclamation process of identity because we exist in multiple worlds in terms of the gay lesbian community and within our native communities and I don't want you to sort of go away today sort of thinking that native in Native culture that there's sort of um everybody has sort of accepted two spirited people because remember we have been colonized and assimilated into America and so some of those values that we were sort of taught are lost and so right now A lot of two-p people are actually reteaching those lessons but if you've met a lot if you meet um traditional Native folks they will tell you stories about us so this is my story my story so I I left a reservation I was born and raised on rosebird reservation in South Dakota um and one of the things I sort sort of learned over the years is that reservations are actually prison of War camps and I was born and raised there and I left a reservation at the urging of my parents who sort of said go discover the world there are more people like you and so I left and went to the University of South Dakota studied at the University of South Dakota but I found it really difficult to sort of it's a really different world viiew that I had to sort of come into um I grew up in a very indigenous household but came into America where values were very um contradictory to each other um and sort of I had to understand what it meant to be American although we lived in America it's a very sort of isolated sort of place especially in rural South Dakota and so for me one of the things I always like to tell folks is I came out as gay first before I came out as an Indian because one of the things I I joined at the University of South Dakota I joined the gay and lesbian Student Association no sooner did I get there and that was back in the days in 1990 when you had to um call the psychology department to find out where the gain lesbian Student Association was meeting and you met with the psychology professor before you were given the secret location we've come a long way haven't we and so I spent all of my sort of Developmental years early years in college was actually coming into the movement and creating my finding my space around my sexual identity but then really sort of struggled with the sort of identity who I who I was in the world around being native and so I had to sort of reconcile what it meant to be native in this country and inherited one of the things I discovered over time was I inherited a lot of Trauma from my parents and unintentionally they taught me to have pride about myself and to be who I am but covertly they also taught me shame not because they wanted to but because that's what they were taught from Catholic schools who really um had the sort of policy that anything but Indian and so that's what I inherited and that was that voice I knew and so in order for me to sort of reconnect with my cultural identity I really had to help my family family heal from that trauma that they experienced here in America and it's still going on today these are the women that actually in my development those are my um my grandmother up to the right my mother on the left and my aunt um women that were really instrumental in my life I was an feminite kid who grew up around women and socialized around women I didn't play with cars I didn't do anything boy stuff I was brought up in the circle of women and it wasn't until I was an adult that I actually um understood what it was to be around men because they were just not in my nature to be around men and so it was as an adult that I came to understand the world of men and believe me it's very different very very different um for me having left the University of South Dakota coming here to the Twin Cities I sort of came to sort of experience here in the Twin Cities which is a really mecca for a lot of critical thinking and a lot of community activism and found that space where two spirited people existed and so could meet other folks and talk talk story with folks and heal from trauma and one of the person that also moved me along is my son I became a parent in 1999 I became a parent of a boy so this was a real sort of experience for me because I've never been around boys and here I was responsible for socializing a boy and I'm like holy cow I don't know anything about your world dude I don't know how to help you here and my son has been very patient with me because um I always sort of look at him and like oh my God where did you learn that at you know there's this guy handshake there's a sort of bump hits and I'm like where's that come from I don't I don't talk to my girlfriend's like that we don't do stuff like that you know we're hugging we're kissing we're screaming you know and that's what I know you know but going up and give him that H I was like Dude where's that come from so anyway so it was my son who taught me this and one of the things this was me I did drag for a number of years until my son was about four um and it's really difficult to perform and have children one of the things I always say is like you know one time I was doing a a show and um Sunny was supposed to be this is my son he's right there in the middle um he was supposed to be with my friends while I was busy on stage but he saw me and so he ran up on stage so here I'm doing a number I pick him up finish the number doing my number and I was like holy [ __ ] it's like who else does this I the drag queen with kids um and so one of the things for one of the things about my family and that's my other son Joe we have to come out every year CU both my boys are very active in sports and so every year we have to come out as a family and our sort of family structure and how we sort of created our family and we have to sort of my son insists on calling me Mom and has always called me Mom since he was little ever since he could speak I've been a single parent and so he's called me mom even sometimes at my insistence to say to him call me dad it'll be safer for you to call me dad because people won't laugh at you they won't make fun of you it'll be easier for you to try to explain if you just call me dad but then he would always say to me but you're my mom you're my mom and so every year I one of the years I I always have to come out and I'm standing there with the dads Because you know a lot of dads go to these Sports things and you know it's a guy thing and I'm like okay here I go um and so I'm standing there with with a bunch of guys and there and here's my son comes running up and saying mom mom mom mom and of course all the guys are like what what are you talking about why is he calling you Mom and I just sort of look at that sort of face and I'm saying Just Go With It just don't even think too hard about it it's our little world you know we don't affect your life in any sort of way so just go with it I'm the mom and so one of the things for myself in my journey I came to sort of understand is that you know it's human nature to categorize people even today when I walked out I imagine you probably told my life story as soon as I stepped on stage by the look of my hair by my jewelry and by the nature and also my intonation and my voice so you told my story before I got a chance to tell my story and so one of the things I've learned in time was that gender does not equal sexuality who I'm attracted to and how I express myself in terms of gender are very distinct and so today I was I present myself as a man and there's particular reasons why I do this and it's more out of safety and my experience of sort of going in the world and dressing as a woman it's unsafe you know there's not safety in this world to dress as a woman and there's a lot of sort of things things that I sort of had to struggle with and because one of the things I had no personal space anymore people could touch me and that was not okay with me men sort of assumed that they can cross boundaries that were not okay with me and I'm like really you would never do this with other Mills but somehow because I'm dressing as a woman it's okay for you to come up come on me like that and one of the things too in the transgender Community um there's a lot of struggle with in the transgender Community um you talk about sexual assaults you talk about poverty you talk about domestic assaults my experience is the transgender Community is not is not unique I had been sexually assaulted one night leaving the bar here in the cities and I was going home and one man who said to me um he he commented to me earlier that night that I was pretty and so I was walking home that night alone which I had done before it was not a big deal and it was that man the one who said I was pretty and he had this right and claimed ownership of my body in ways that was not okay and so to this day I still can I have sort of chosen to present myself in the world for my own safety and for the safety of my family because I need my kids to be safe two spirit this idea of two spiritedness is an indigenous concept and for me that that's where I sort of found a place in the world and I found safety within my tribal community and I grown up in a family who's incredibly supportive of me and who I am and they love me regardless it's time to create space for gender fluidity and that's what I want to leave you with here today and one of the things in when my son was little in kindergarten I would take him to class and you know all the little kids would come running up and you know they were excited to see see me because I'm the mom you know I was this novelty it was like it's kind of confusing but that's the mom I was kind of that thing and so all the kids would come rushing up on me and they were like the mom is here the mom is here the mom is here and they would all surround me and they'd be all looking at me wideeye and they'd be touching me and they'd be like oh my God you're the mom I'm like yes I'm the mom and they would say are you a boy or a girl and i' say what do you need me to be because at you know in kindergarten they're really figuring out their place in the world and they haven't really got a sense of themselves and so some would say a boy I want you to be a boy I want you to be a girl and they would answer it and I'm going like yeah that's okay I'll be what you need me to be and then one of the things I would say to them I'm like the rural is a great big place and there's lots of different kinds of people and I'm one of them thank you