"listen to indigenous voices"
In Ojibwe my native language it's a greeting that usually is just meant to say hi or welcome. But it's older translation means something that's more like "I see your light" or "I see you."
It was a way of recognizing a person while also showing respect for their personhood.
Do you see me? Do you see my light? If I said aanin to you, could you say it back?
If studies on gender, work/job inequalities, sexuality, hate crimes, assault, population, education levels, or other demographic based statistics include you then you have the privilege of being seen within systemic oppression.
Perhaps you entirely lack systemic power, but at the very least you don't lack visibility. You have the ability to reference objective sources that you can use to prove that not only your oppression exists, but that you exist and deserve to be cared about.
I'm two spirit which makes me part of a demographic that not only is never included in studies or statistics, but that is also left out of even feminist analysis. The exception to that being when the person writing the analysis is intentionally making the point that white supremacy, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and/or racism are all tools of colonialism that must be deconstructed.
Anti-colonial understandings should be the standard of feminist and gender analysis, especially if feminism is to serve all women.
There are so, so many indigenous genders and expressions that are never ever talked about, known, or accepted outside of their own tribes or people.
The vague expression that "queer ppl have always been here" is a popular slogan and so often indigenous people are used like tools to prove that point, but nobody can name what makes us queer or asks if we even want to be considered queer. Nobody seems to notice the way we are only ever acknowledged to prove the important of someone else.
To know nothing about us, our values, the ways we serve our communities, or our personhood while using us as tools in debates is just another racist way objectifying us without having to actually care about us.
So few people stop to think about the word queer itself, who it describes, or what queer people are being compared to, where those things come from, or perhaps most importantly: why. So few people stop to think about those of us who consider ourselves outside of all that. By that I mean queerness, being straight, the definitions of man and woman, being cis, etc. Those are all labels and ideas that stem from a colonial and oppressive framework of understanding gender, sexuality, societal expectations, and identity.
So it makes sense that this framework never ever includes people like me, someone from a people that colonialism actively targeted from the very beginning.
I say knowing exactly how indigenous kids were forced to conform to these standards in boarding & residential schools.
So it isn't a mistake nor is it a coincidence that people with indigenous genders, sexualities, or identities are never included.
They still don't want us to exist.
I know it seems like I'm asking for acceptance into that framework. So let me be clear that I am absolutely not. I don't want my indigeneity to be absorbed into the same exact framework that has always sought to oppress, suppress, subjugate, and erase my people.
I don't want my oppression to be inclusive of me. What I want is liberation and not just for me but for all indigenous peoples regardless of their gender, sexuality, or identity.
And to have that first we must be recognized, cared about, heard.
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