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By means of Darren Thompson
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PHOENIX – This past weekend, the Phoenix Indian Center hosted an annual powwow welcoming and celebrating its lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and two-spirit (LGBTQ2S) relatives in an event that grew throughout Indian Country.
The 3rd Annual Two-Spirit Powwow celebrates with 60 registered dancers and six drummers representing various tribes from across Indian Country.
Before European colonization, many Native communities recognized five genders: male, female, two-spirit male, two-spirit female, and transgendered. Two-spirit is a term commonly and exclusively used by American Indian people and communities that describes a man or woman who has both sexes—male and female simultaneously.
“In many different tribes, many members of the community Two Spirits are important and important, and because we are in an urban center, we do not need to be around our homeland,” said the Chief Executive Phoenix Indian Center Officer Jolyana Begay-Kroupa. Indigenous News Online. “Many times, our teachings are lost over time. This powwow is really about organizing a way to give back, support and celebrate our brothers and sisters in the LGTBQ2S community.
The Phoenix Indian Center has organized the powwow since 2021, when it was held virtually and has remained committed to supporting the LGBTQ2S community ever since. Established in 1947, the Phoenix Indian Center is the oldest urban American Indian Center in the United States.
Last week’s Two-Spirit Powwow was co-organized by Mesa Community College and South Mountain Community College and drew the largest crowd the event has seen to date. The powwow includes more than two dozen art vendors, food vendors, and booths for people to sign up for information from the Phoenix Indian Center, Native Health, or how to become allies of LGBTQ2s. that community.
“It was a great turnout today, lots of smiling faces,” Begay-Kroupa said of the powwow.
Monique “Muffie” Mousseau came from Rapid City, SD, to attend the powwow to support her partner, Felipa De Leon, as one of the head dancers and the Phoenix Indian Center.
“They supported us when we were struggling with Felipa,” said Mousseau in an interview with Indigenous News Online.
Mousseau and De Leon married seven other couples at the National Gay Marriage Celebration in 2015 at Mount Rushmore National Monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota. When the couple discovered that same-sex remains illegal on the Pine Ridge Reservation where they grew up, they petitioned for a change in the reservations law – which they achieved in 2019 when the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council passed the same- sex marriage ordinance by 12 -3 votes.
Mousseau and De Leon went on to start Uniting Resilience, an organization that advocates for other Indigenous communities to establish laws to protect and rights for marriage equality.
They help organize an annual two-spirit powwow in Sioux Falls.
Tony Duncan, award-winning hoop dancer and Native American flute player, attended the event with his family to support his brother, who was one of the powwow’s head dancers.
“We came as a family to support my brother, Kyle,” said Tony Duncan Native News Online. “It’s great to see everyone here.”
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