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The 2nd Annual Two-Spirit Powwow 2020

Two-Spirit Powwow.jpg

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Title

The 2nd Annual Two-Spirit Powwow 2020

Subject

Dancing with the ancestors is the subject of this film. In addition, it documents a new cultural practice that allows gender variant participation in powwows previously only for binary people Indians.

One unnamed speaker exclaims: "Back in the 1980s and 1990s, we just didn't come out.

Another unnamed speaker said, "I'm Navajo, and in the Navaho wave, LGBT people had a place in our tribes. And because of colonization and religion, unfortunately, we lost those teachings, so my organization, Native PFLAG, is bringing back those traditional teachings."

Description

In the first year of the two-spirit powwow, twenty-four participants registered.

In the second year, 2020, two-spirit participation jumped to sixty-four registrants.

It was a victory when the 2nd Annual Two-Spirit Powwow took place in Phoenix, and the powwow committee removed gender from all dance categories.
Anyone could dance.

Powwow committee member and speaker Iann Austin won the powwow title of 'Mr. Southwest Two Spirit,'

They say that the term two spirits are new. It was coined in 1990 at a powwow, he reports, by someone not allowed to dance. So there was no place for them, neither in the program nor the facilities.

The Two Spirit Powwow is hosted by Native PFLAG, an LGBTQ organization aiming to keep families together and foster traditional teachings about being an LGBT and Two-Spirit Indian.

Source

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_B-tVYa_oE

Contributor

Arizona Public Media.
Producer/Videographer/Editor: Andrew Brown & David Fenster

YouTube Video Item Type Metadata

YouTube ID

J_B-tVYa_oE

Citation

“The 2nd Annual Two-Spirit Powwow 2020”, The Historical Development of BIPOC Trans-Spiritual Leadership, LGBTQ Religious Archives Network, accessed December 27, 2024, https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/bipoc-trans-spiritual/item/1941.

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