Two-Spirit woman: Overcoming trauma

As a two-spirit woman, Carla Douglas has survived trauma and experiences that many people will not have to go through in their lifetime. She has overcome these challenges to become a needed resource in Rapid City. Photo by: Richie Richards

RAPID CITY — When Carla Douglas, 54, was born, her mother wanted a daughter so badly she named the young child, Carla Georgina and began dressing her in girl’s clothing.
Douglas is a First Nations woman born and raised in British Columbia, Canada. Off and on for the last thirty years, she has called Rapid City home. She is currently volunteering with several organizations in the Black Hills town, including Rapid City Community Conversations and One Rapid City.
She brings her experience, background and education to the table of any discussion which may include topics such as discrimination and crisis intervention. Douglas is active in these discussions because she is a survivor herself.
When she was born, her mother was incarcerated and had “wanted a girl”. She dressed Carla in girl’s clothing and this was how it was.
During the early stages of her life, Douglas remembers the random beatings she endured in the middle of the night from a mother who was an alcoholic. These beatings would occur for trivial reasons; over chores that were not done, or for getting her clothes dirty. Douglas learned early on to pretend to be sleeping, so she could be prepared to defend herself should her mom come in her room after a night of drinking.
During these late night beatings, Douglas said she developed a comforting relationship with pain. At age 5, she made her first of many attempts at suicide. One day, she went into the bathroom and took all of the pills in the medicine cabinet. She survived because her body rejected the pills and she “threw them back up”.
The young girl said she was taken advantage of sexually many times by family members and persons in the homes where her mom would leave her.
At the age of 6, Douglas was made to go to a mission boarding school in British Columbia. When she entered the school, she came in with both a boy’s and a girl’s uniform, but she felt most comfortable wearing the uniform which matched her gender – girl. She said children her age didn’t know what to think of her, so they didn’t pick on her as much as the older children. “The ones near my age didn’t get it. They weren’t the bullies. They didn’t know how to act around me. I looked queer to them, strange,” she said. “When they heard to older ones make fun of me, they didn’t understand that either. All of us ‘boys’ had to be in one dorm and I didn’t fit in.”
The bullying did not stop with the children. Douglas says it was the priests and nuns who would yell and shout at her which inspired the children to do the same. The priests and nuns would refer to her as being evil, or a heathen. “I was called an abomination. I was called a devil’s child. I could not conform to their ideology of being a boy,” she said.
While at the boarding school, Douglas recalls a priest who had gained interest in the girl. She said the man had taken her under his wing and he had become a place of comfort for her. He took favor to her and gave her special treatment. That was until one day when he called her into a room, alone.
“There was a father there, that when I first got to boarding school, he started to be nice to me. He showed me a little bit of affection,” she said. This was at a time when Douglas was being harassed and bullied on a daily basis. “He made me feel safe. He used to give me a treat.”
“One night he called for me and he told me that this was a time that we were going to pray. When I started praying, I was saying Our Fathers (prayers), I was doing the Virgin Mary (prayer). There was another prayer I had to recite, and as I was doing this he started to…” Douglas said. This was the first of several incidents in which she was sexually abused at the boarding school by men of the cloth.
At this point, Douglas had been emotionally abused, mentally abused, physically abused, sexually abused and now spiritual abuse had entered her life. She was not yet 8 years old.
Following her boarding school experience, Douglas had gone to the public school. She said Canadian law had made First Nations children go to boarding school from ages 6-8, before they could attend public school. The school was located 25 miles from her home. The teachers and staff of the public school were made aware of the fact that she “was a girl” before she arrived.
“I’m a girl, but I was born with male genitalia,” she said. “At first it was OK, they all knew I looked kind of odd to them. I would play with girls and I wore blouses to school.”
The trauma of riding the bus each day for 50 miles to and from school was traumatic. During the bus rides, students would not allow her to sit by them. She said bullies would spit on her and punch her as she walked down the aisle of the bus.
Up until this point, Douglas said her stepfather had tried to bond with her through traditionally male-gendered activities. He wanted her to be a son-figure in his life, but while he was away truck driving, Douglas could be her mom’s daughter. This threw the young girl’s self-identity yearning to find itself. When she got into middle school, the bullying and teasing went to another level for Douglas. It was during this time when her mother and stepfather had separated.
Douglas had gone to live with her stepfather but was eventually returned to her mother’s custody as the stepfather was unable to care for the children. At the age of 11, Douglas said her mom began to sex traffic her. It was during a night when she was pretending to be asleep that a man came into her bedroom said her mother had sent him there to make her a woman. The mother was exchanging money, alcohol and household items for sex with the pre-teen. This happened from the ages of 11-13.
Eventually, Douglas had run away from home for a time and had gone to live with her grandfather. Before living with her grandfather, Douglas had lived in a camp just outside of town. He was good to Douglas and kept a home for her through high school.
The bullying continued and children kept harassing her for being who she was. It was things like gym class which caused stress and traumatic experiences. Boys dressed in their locker room and the girls dressed in their locker room. Douglas dressed in a bathroom stall located in the gym. One day, a group of boys entered into the bathroom and began to harass her for being in women’s underclothes (bra and panties). This is when she says the boys had gang raped her.
Living through these things for Douglas has been traumatic. She has lived her 54 years as a female. Men and women have taken advantage of her for most of her life. Becoming an adult kept her living in the life that she was raised in. She had turned to prostitution on occasion for survival. She eventually had gone to college and received her degree.
Last year, Douglas’ wife of 30 years had passed away. The year since has been hard on her, but she continues to help others. She is active in the Rapid City community. She brings experience and depth to any conversation and a sense of healing to the community.
Douglas now heads Douglas Mental Health Services and specializes in LGBT/transgender, suicide, sexual abuse, sex trafficking, crisis intervention and grief/bereavement. She can be contacted at douglasmentalhealth2019@gmail.com.