ABOUT THIS PODCAST: Ryan Young, a Two Spirit Ojibwe artist from the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Nation, joins us for this episode of the Native Hope Podcast. As a modern indigenous artist and intellect, Ryan sheds light on the importance of gender fluidity, personal pronouns, “reclaiming space," the heterosexual construct of blood quantum, the gender neutrality of the Creator, and their recent accomplishment with the Eighth Generation, “Two Spirit Blanket.” Two Spirit is the reclaimed Indigenous way of describing a member of the LGBTQ community and has been accepted long before the influences of binary, traditional Western perimeters of gender classification and identity, which Ryan explains. Ryan prefers to be referred to as “they or their,” as they describe not being able to be classified as male or female but rather embodying both the feminine and masculine energies. They feel it to be of utmost importance to call out the marginalized aura that surrounds the Indigenous two spirited population, reminding everyone that “we define ourselves.”
Production Photos
