Ma-Nee Chacaby: 'I'm Old, But So What?' Says The Two-Spirit Elder
LGBTQ&A
Jeffrey Masters
4.7 • 703 Ratings
🗓️ 19 March 2024
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ma-Nee Chacaby talks about learning that she was Two-Spirit as a kid, her rural upbringing, and the challenges of being an out indigenous lesbian in Thunder Bay, Canada in the 1980s. Ma-Nee is the author of A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder. (Note: This episode discusses domestic violence.)
"Put love in front of you when you get up in the morning and it'll guide you to a beautiful place. It'll guide you."
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This is a part of our special series, The LGBTQ+ Elders Project. Click here to listen to our interview with the 92-year-old pioneer photographer Duane Michals.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Moni Chikabe grew up in the kind of isolated, rural community where her family would heat |
| 0:07.7 | a bucket of water up on the stove for everyone to share as bathwater. |
| 0:12.5 | They'd gather fruits and vegetables during the day, and as a kid, she learned how to |
| 0:16.6 | hunt and trap animals, and they wouldn't let anything go to waste. They'd tan and dye moose hide, for example, using that for clothing or door covers. |
| 0:26.1 | I'm a good hunter, and I'm proud to say that because not too many people like me would talk like |
| 0:32.2 | that. If I got lost or got a way somewhere, I would survive. |
| 0:38.9 | Today, Moni is 73 years old and lives in Thunderbake Canada. |
| 0:43.8 | She is a lesbian, two-spirit elder, an activist, an artist, and the author of the memoir, A Two-Spirit Journey. |
| 0:51.9 | I'm Jeffrey Masters, and this is LGBTQ&A with Mani Chacabe. |
| 0:57.3 | Here she is. |
| 1:10.5 | One of the things I find so interesting is that, you know, being queer or trans, it's often something that one discovers about oneself at many different ages, but it's self-discovery. |
| 1:23.1 | And yet, for you, your grandmother told you that you were Two-Spirit when you were a kid. |
| 1:30.1 | Yeah. |
| 1:30.9 | Why did she say that to you? |
| 1:32.3 | Like, what told her about that? |
| 1:34.5 | Well, she's dealt with a lot of Two-Spirit people in the past. |
| 1:38.7 | She said Two-Spirit people existed a long time ago. |
| 1:41.9 | They just didn't call it Two-Spirit or they just didn't mention it. |
| 1:46.0 | Like, it wasn't advertised or anything. Because everybody just live among each other. |
| 1:51.7 | Whoever you were attracted to was okay with them. What was about you as a kid that, like, indicated |
| 1:58.5 | or maybe, might have, like, told her that you also were to spirit. |
| 2:02.2 | It's just the way I was. I didn't like wearing skirts. I would take them off. They were always |
... |
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