Latest news with #AlbertMcLeod
CTV News
4 days ago
- Politics
- CTV News
2Spirit history and the path forward
Dr. Albert McLeod highlights the 2Spirit movement, its deep roots in Indigenous culture, and efforts toward national recognition with new Canada Post stamps.
Winnipeg Free Press
5 days ago
- General
- Winnipeg Free Press
Stamp to celebrate 2Spirit pride
The summer of 1990 will forever loom large for Elder Albert McLeod. That year, Indigenous leaders from all over North America — including McLeod, who helped organize the event — assembled at the third North American Native Gay & Lesbian Gathering (now known as the Annual International Two-Spirit Gathering) near Beausejour. It was a powerful, transformative and intensely spiritual weekend, where attendees could be held by all the Indigenous history, culture and ceremony that had been stolen. ALEX LUPUL / FREE PRESS FILES Elder Albert McLeod helped organize the 1990 North American Native Gay & Lesbian Gathering, where the term Two-Spirit was introduced to the lexicon. ALEX LUPUL / FREE PRESS FILES Elder Albert McLeod helped organize the 1990 North American Native Gay & Lesbian Gathering, where the term Two-Spirit was introduced to the lexicon. 'You know, I was born in the '50s, and grew up in the '60s and '70s, and we knew nothing about our Indigenous identity, our past. Many of us had lost our language, and it was really this process of forced assimilation to being white or western — and that didn't fit with us. We were curious about our histories,' says McLeod, who turns 70 this year. 'We had asked, through ceremony, for this information about our identities.' And what they received that weekend, McLeod says, was a gift. It was there that Fisher River Cree Nation member Myra Laramee introduced the term two-spirit, which she says came to her in a vision. Two-spirit was a revelation, a term that can describe someone's sexual, gender and/or spiritual identity, informed by the Indigenous understandings of gender, spirituality and self-determination that colonialism sought to destroy. Now, that historic event is being commemorated by Canada Post as part of Places of Pride, a four-stamp collection featuring illustrations honouring specific sites of LGBTTQ+ history in Canada. Supplied Places of Pride stamp Two-Spirit commemorates a 1990 gathering near Beausejour that led to the birth of the term. Supplied Places of Pride stamp Two-Spirit commemorates a 1990 gathering near Beausejour that led to the birth of the term. McLeod, one of the directors of 2Spirit Manitoba, worked with the Canada Post team on the Two-Spirit stamp, which depicts people participating in ceremony under a summer night sky. (The artwork is also featured as a mural at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.) 'You see the big drum, you see the women's fire, you see the pipe, and you see the sweat lodge, and there's actually a hawk there — and the full moon. It happened on a full moon. So there's all these elements at play that weekend that really changed our lives forever,' McLeod says, noting that many other Indigenous LGBT groups in North America changed their name to two-spirit by the following year, a reflection of just how resonant the term was, he says. The coining and claiming of two-spirit was an act of liberation, he says. 'As Indigenous people it was our inalienable right and our inherent right to receive that (spiritual name), but because we were gay, that was something that was not given to us because of the form of homophobia and transphobia outside the Indigenous community and inside the Indigenous community. So we had to make that pathway ourselves.' These days, thanks to the work of McLeod and others, two-spirit is a widely recognized term. In 2017, former prime minister Justin Trudeau formally apologized for Canada's role in the systematic criminalization, oppression and violence against LGBTTQ+ Canadians and used, explicitly, the term two-spirit. In 2022, the Canadian government released its Federal 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan, which saw 2S move to the front of the acronym — 'which is historically accurate, because we are the first queers of the Americas,' McLeod says. And the gift given in the summer of 1990 has since been passed down to subsequent generations of two-spirit people. 'It's been 35 years, so a generation or more has passed, and we do see youth today who are in their 30s and they're not carrying the burden that my generation carried. They are finishing high school. They are going to university. They do have careers. They have families. They have houses. They have children. So they're getting on with their lives without this sort of barrier,' McLeod says. 'It really is a form of not having to carry that legacy of intergenerational trauma or the impact of Indian residential schools or day schools, and just live their life to the fullest but being protected at the same time for that expression or that identity.' The Places of Pride stamps and collectibles are available now at and at select postal outlets across Canada. Jen ZorattiColumnist Jen Zoratti is a columnist and feature writer working in the Arts & Life department, as well as the author of the weekly newsletter NEXT. A National Newspaper Award finalist for arts and entertainment writing, Jen is a graduate of the Creative Communications program at RRC Polytech and was a music writer before joining the Free Press in 2013. Read more about Jen. Every piece of reporting Jen produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
CBC
15-02-2025
- Politics
- CBC
'We've been tokenized': Royal Winnipeg Ballet's entire Indigenous advisory circle resigns
Social Sharing Members of an Indigenous advisory committee at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet say they're cutting ties with the organization after seven years. The Indigenous advisory circle — comprising lawyer Danielle Morrison, two-spirit elder Albert McLeod and University of Winnipeg professor Kevin Lamoureaux — resigned en masse along with a board member via letter on Friday afternoon. The advisory circle, formed in 2018, was intended to make Canada's oldest ballet company "a more equitable, diverse and inclusive organization," the ballet's website says. But that goal was at odds with the advisory circle's experience with the ballet's management and board of directors, said Morrison, the advisory circle's co-founder. "Essentially, what it boils down to is that we've had this Indigenous advisory circle since 2018, and we have never been invited to have board representation," she told CBC News. "It's really hard to provide any recommendations about the direction of where the organization is going if we're not part of the strategic planning." Morrison said the advisory circle told the ballet's leadership that they should have board representation in 2018 and again in 2023, but that didn't happen. She described the advisory circle's communication with the ballet's management and board as subpar. "Leadership and your board is a reflection of your organization, and I'm really sorry to say that the relationship simply was not there," she said. The group was typically called on to make appearances at the opening and closing ceremonies of the ballet's season, according to Morrison. "We're not seen as equal partners. We're seen as people that need to be consulted with," she said. "We're only called upon when we're needed. It's usually when something bad is happening in the organization, or their reputation might be at risk." Ballet 'will listen and learn' Morrison says she wants the ballet company to offer the group a formal apology. John Osler, chair of the ballet's board, said in a statement to CBC News that the company respects the advisory circle's decision and offers its gratitude for their guidance. "We will continue to seek meaningful relationships within the Indigenous community, we will listen and learn from what has been respectfully shared on where we must do better, and we will work with Indigenous advisers and communities on finding new pathways to reconciliation," he said. Albert McLeod, who joined the advisory circle about a few years ago, says the group wanted to be involved in the hiring of the ballet's new artistic director, but no one engaged with them during that process. They learned Christopher Stowell was taking the job through the news last month. "It's come to this because we've been tokenized and people don't really care what we think," he said. Indigenous people have been dancing in North America for centuries, and the advisory circle was a chance for the ballet company to understand how Indigenous people wanted to see themselves represented in the company's productions, McLeod said. It was also an opportunity for the ballet to incorporate the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 Calls to Action and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls' 231 Calls to Justice into its operations. However, McLeod says, the ballet is stuck in its own bubble. "This is the time for change, and you have to have confidence and ability to do that, and certainly ballet has done that for centuries, but it's not evident here." The end of the advisory circle is also a loss for McLeod. "I really appreciated the opportunities to see the ballet performances, to see the dancers, the artistry," he said.
