Folks Like Us: Anishinaabe Two-Spirit Kinship and Memory Across Time and Space

Abstract

This dissertation addresses the relationship between kinship and memory through the question, “how have Indigenous LGBTQ Two-Spirit people from the Anishinaabe nations remembered their own history?” Through examination of Anishinaabe language(s), nineteenth century individuals who transgressed Euro-American norms of gender and sexuality, literature by contemporary Anishinaabe LGBTQ2 authors, and contributions to a zine by LGBTQ2 Anishinaabe artists, I argue that the primary method of memory-making for Anishinaabe Two-Spirit people has been through the maintenance of trans*temporal kinship—a form of queer Indigenous relationality that can extend over vast time and space. This project applies insights from the emerging field of tribally-specific Two-Spirit studies to Anishinaabe contexts, while also engaging with the fields of transgender and queer studies to provide an Indigenous lens to debates about the ethics of claiming historical figures as ancestors.