JACK SADDLEBACK

CULTURAL & PROJECTS CO- ORDINATOR FOR OUTSASKATOON

Growing up, I was always that gender queer kid. At first, I was allowed to act and express myself the way I wanted but later everyone encouraged me to be more on the feminine spectrum because they were worried about my safety. At home they could ensure I was loved but in school, for instance, they weren’t there to protect me. It created a lot of insecurity and isolation for me, I wasn’t able to relate to my peers and I started to feel awkward because I couldn’t be myself and had suicidal thoughts during puberty which eventually landed me in hospital.

It was at that time that my family rallied behind me but it wasn’t until 2006, when I was 18, that I came out as a trans man.

A couple of years later I met a medicine man from New Mexico and I remember him looking at me from head to toe searching for any ailments in my spirit. He told me:“Jack, there is another spirit in you that makes you think like this.”

That opened my mind to my way of being — I was gifted with two spirits. I am not just a trans man, or a gay man, or a Cree man. All those things combine to form me.

I work at OutSaskatoon, which has been around since 1991, making it one of the longest- running organisations working with gender and sexuality topics in western Canada. We offer educational resources, testing clinics, peer support and a safe dropin space for the men, women, trans, and two- spirit people — young and old.

We also work with the Pride festival which started in the early 1990s. Last year, we had 2,000 folks out, but some of our LGBTQ2 seniors have told me that only about 20 people marched at early Prides and most of them wore masks to stay safe. It was quite a hostile environment for them so we have come a long way in a couple decades.

We often use the term two- spirit now as more of a pan- indigenous umbrella. Prior to colonisation, there were very important roles for those people whether they were medicine people, gifted weavers or held more of a war chief role. Their gender expression wasn’t limited to their own physical body so their spirit would tell them where to go, and our understanding of the sexual and gender spectrum was very rich.

This understanding extended to tribes all the way down to South America. Some of the earliest history lessons we have been able to uncover involve the Spaniards’ arrival in South America. When they discovered a twospirit group, which was celebrated by their community, they put them all together and had their attack dogs slaughter them, with everyone else forced to watch.

I share this horrific story because it is a reality that many two- spirit folks throughout the generations have been subjected to.

This persists today through violence, and a lack of employment and housing opportunities.

Colonisation brought Western heteronormative viewpoints, forcing many communities to hide their two- spirit folks to ensure their safety.

Then First Nations’ peoples started to have their view points morphed to deny there was that culture of acceptance.

But I always say there will never be any closets in tepees.

COLONIALISTS LET ATTACK DOGS SLAUGHTER TWOSPIRIT GROUPS. PEOPLE WERE FORCED TO WATCH