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Phoenix Indian Center holds annual Rainbow Gathering for Two Spirit LGBTQIA+ community
The Phoenix Indian center hosted its annual Southwest American Indian 2SLGBTQIA+ Rainbow Gathering on June 12, 2025, at South Mountain Community College. Photo by Shondiin Silversmith | Arizona Mirror
In a time of uncertainty and continuous attacks on the rights of LGBTQ+ people in Arizona and beyond, the Phoenix Indian Center wanted to offer the community a safe space for individuals to share resources and stories that highlighted Indigenous experiences.
'Visibility is more important now than ever before,' said Levi Long, a communications specialist with the Phoenix Indian Center, due to the ongoing attacks on the rights of this community.
For many Indigenous people, the acronym primarily used is 2SLGBTQIA+, which includes Two Spirit people. The term Two Spirit acknowledges the traditional roles and identities of Indigenous people who lived outside the binary of male and female within many Indigenous communities, and is an identity that predates the colonization of North America.
Two Spirit Diné trans woman Trudie Jackson has been a prominent advocate for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community for decades and is an Indigenous scholar with research and work that focuses on the Two Spirit community.
When she placed the 2S before LGBTQIA+, she said she had people constantly trying to correct her.
'Two Spirit existed before colonization and the Stonewall Riot,' Jackson said. 'My ancestors were here before the colonizers.'
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President Donald Trump's administration has pushed anti-2SLGBTQIA+ policies since he took office, including a rollback on health care services, implementing policies recognizing only two genders and banning trans people from the military and playing sports.
In Arizona, several officials have pushed the same rhetoric by introducing and advancing a slate of anti-2SLGBTQIA+ bills, including a sweeping anti-trans 'biological sex' bill that Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed in April.
At the Phoenix Indian Center, Long said that they are very intentional with centering Indigiqueer voices, especially in a time of uncertainty with the political landscape and the consistent challenges to their rights.
He said he hopes that more organizations from the Indigenous community will step up for their 2SLGBTQIA+ relatives to let them know that there are safe spaces for them — and they're not going anywhere.
The center hosted its annual Southwest American Indian 2SLGBTQIA+ Rainbow Gathering on June 12 at South Mountain Community College, providing a safe space for Indigenous people to share resources and stories. The theme for this year's Rainbow Gathering was 'Weaving Tradition: Past, Present and Future for Native People.'
The Phoenix Indian Center is the oldest nonprofit organization serving the Indigenous community in the United States, offering a range of services including workforce development, peer support and youth development.
Phoenix Indian Center CEO Jolyana Begay-Kroupa said the Rainbow Gathering is always rooted in Indigenous teachings of respect and a space that honors 2SLGBTQIA+ relatives as sacred healers, leaders and community caretakers.
'This gathering celebrates this diversity that weaves our Indigenous community together and makes us collectively stronger,' she said, adding that it's essential to look at the cultural teachings to guide the framework for a future that ensures all Indigenous people can thrive and have access to equitable lives.
'We gather here right now to find strength, to find solidarity and weave a stronger fabric so that we can hold on together,' Begay-Kroupa said.
The gathering featured multiple speakers from the 2SLGBTQIA+ Indigenous community, who focused on topics related to Two Spirit health care, the history of Two Spirit people within Indigenous communities, body image, personal experiences and resources available.
One experience shared during the event was by Charlie Amáyá Scott.
She said she was 13 when she told her mother she is queer. She wrote it down on a note and slipped it into her mother's lunch bag.
'I was a scared little queer, and I was like: 'I'm queer. Love me, please,'' Scott said. 'Later that day, after I told her in a note, she told me that she loves me.'
Scott, now 30, said she is proud to be her mother's oldest daughter. She was the keynote speaker for the Rainbow Gathering, and she shared with the crowd some of her life experiences as a queer, trans Diné woman and Indigenous scholar, emphasizing the importance of stories and storytelling.
'Through stories, we learn who we are, where we come from, and what we could be,' Scott added. 'We exist because of stories.'
A story Scott shared reinvents the Diné creation story, going beyond the strict gender binary of the original creation narrative.
'First Woman noticed that all creatures had a choice about who they could be and who they could love,' Scott said. 'First Woman wanted this for her people, the Diné, too.'
The story shares how the First Woman's gift to the Diné people was a choice, and that is how Scott would have written the creation story.
Scott wrote that story over a year ago, and she said it was to share a creation story that included honoring queer, trans and intersex relatives, 'unlike the popularized versions that dictate a colonizing sex binary and heterosexuality.'
Scott said she shared the story because she dreams of a better future, world and life.
'There's something very freeing when we rewrite our stories,' she said, because it provides people the ability to dream and imagine a world of possibility, liberation and freedom.
'A world that we write for ourselves and our cherished loved ones,' she added. 'Stories are not just stories, they are memories, they are lessons, they are guidance from generations before.'
Scott said she has rewritten four traditional creation stories, including one about Spider Woman, who was responsible for teaching the Diné people how to weave.
'Our traditions are meant to evolve and change in time,' she said. 'To keep them static is to kill them off.'
Scott said that Indigenous people are losing part of themselves if traditions do not evolve or change because they are 'meant to live and reflect who we are and where we're going.'
'What remains is the teaching, not the specificity,' she added.
The Rainbow Gathering has been held in the Phoenix area since 2011. Jackson established the event and it is now hosted annually by the Phoenix Indian Center.
During the gathering, Jackson shared her work on the state of Two Spirit health in North America, which later became a chapter in the book 'A History of Transgender Medicine in the United States.' The book features 40 contributors and Jackson is the only Indigenous author.
Jackson talked about the impact of colonization on Two Spirit health, which includes stigma, self-confidence, self-worth, health, well-being, homophobia, transphobia and historical trauma.
She said that is why, within Indigenous communities, health care workers and facilities must be inclusive of their intake assessments.
Before she changed her name, Jackson said that she still remembers what it felt like when the hospital would call her by her birth name. She said she often contemplated what to do in the waiting room, wondering if she should get up.
However, even after she changed her name, the stigma persisted. Jackson said that her doctor would anger her because they would go through her entire medical history pointing out that she was born male and is now passing as female.
'Our community is often viewed as less than,' she said.
Jackson said it is vital for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community to tell their stories and assert their importance within the cultural, ceremonial and spiritual traditions of their communities.
'Listening to these voices, we can create medical institutions that recognize and meet our unique healthcare needs,' she said.
As part of the gathering, the Phoenix Indian Center presented two community awards, the Basket and Dream Catcher awards. Jackson said she created the awards to be Indigenous, reflecting the identity of Indigenous people.
The Basket award is given to an individual or organization recognized as an ally of the Two Spirit community who has provided support for programming and services targeting the Two Spirit community in the southwest.
Jackson said the basket reward reflects the time and work that goes into preparing and weaving a basket within many Native cultures.
'The intent was to identify an individual who went down the same journey as the basket by creating that weave within the community,' she added.
The 2025 Basket Award was presented to Tara Begay, a Diné board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner and co-owner of TL Family Nurse Practice, LLC in Phoenix.
She is actively involved in Arizona's Rapid Start Initiative, which ensures access to HIV treatment upon diagnosis, according to the Phoenix Indian Center.
'Health care is a fundamental human right,' Begay said. Some of the services her practice provides include sick visits, physical exams, HIV prevention and management, gender affirming care and chronic care.
The Dream Catcher award is presented to an Indigenous person who identifies as Two Spirit and has demonstrated a lifetime commitment and services to the Indigenous 2SLGBTQIA+ community in the southwest.
'We see you, we see your work, we see what you're doing out in the community,' Jackson said, adding that the Dream Catcher Award is similar to having a vision out in the community, they see something is needed and they go out and 'plant that seed.
The 2025 Dream Catcher award was presented to Rita DeMornay, who is Akimel O'odham from the Gila River Indian Community, where she began her 2SLGBTQIA+ advocacy journey.
DeMornay currently serves as Miss Phoenix Pride 2025, she is the first Indigenous winner of the title since 2007.
'My journey has just begun, it is not over,' DeMornay said. 'I will continue to open these doors for our Native Two Spirit LGBTQIA+ community.'
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