Two-Spirit

I'm an affectionate person, almost everyone I've dated or been friends with commenting on that. But whenever I am out in public with my fiancée, I become self-consciously affectionate. Not because I'm concerned about what nasty thoughts people might think about seeing such queerness, but because of what they fail to think.

This post is about what I consider to be one way of being the change I want to see. I think of it as a small public education intervention that I do almost every day.

For National American Indian Heritage Month, Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project (QWOCMAP) is conducting free video and filmmaking workshops for Two Spirits, or queer Native Americans. QWOCMAP believes that today,

Two-Spirit stories are more important than ever. In the past, their stories were forcibly silenced, but today, their still unheard stories put a different spin on notions like "traditional values" and issues like same-sex marriage and immigration. These stories are also a source of healing for Two-Spirits and the larger Native American community.

Through filmmaking, queer, lesbian, and bi-sexual Native American can tell their stories, and all films made during the sixteen-week workshop will premier at the 2010 Queer Women of Color Film Festival, now in its sixth year. That's not the only cool thing QWOCMAP is currently up to. This year marks their 10th anniversary, and they're releasing a DVD of their films, Multiple Borders which focuses on queer immigration.