‘Reclaiming our place in the sacred circle’

RAPID CITY – Two brave Lakota Winyan (women) have conquered the stigma and paved a path for other Two-Spirit Natives.

Monique “Muffie” Mousseau and Felipa DeLeon-Mousseau, members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, found their calling in Indian Country and for more than a decade have worked to change the landscape for fellow two-spirit individuals through their organization Uniting Resilience.

The couple have been together for 18 years and were married in 2015 at the National Marriage Celebration at Mount Rushmore National Memorial on September 6, 2015 with six other couples.

On June 3 the couple will host the inaugural Two Spirit Wacipi at the Monument in Rapid City. The event will open up on Saturday morning with a Matriarch’s breakfast at 8:00 a.m. and Grand Entry at 1 p.m.

“The 1st Annual Two-Spirit Pow Wow Healing/Respect will be a platform for the Two-Spirit community to showcase their talents and empower their voices, while also raising awareness of the discrimination and marginalization they face,” reads a post advertising the Wacipi on the Uniting Resilience website.

The seeds for a Two Spirit Wacipi in He Sapa were sown when the duo were invited to attend a similar powwow in Sioux Falls.

“In April of last year we were just getting done with the Gathering of Nations. When we danced in the Grand Entry we met a Two Spirit couple, April Mattson and Dylan Daniels,” Mousseau said. “The couple were married and Dylan worked for Urban Indian Health in Sioux Falls. He asked if we would emcee their first Two Spirit Powwow in Sioux Falls.”

Mousseau said it was an invitation they didn’t take lightly as there had just been an incident in Idaho where a U-haul truck carrying 31 “Patriot Front” members was stopped, “It was really scary as there was the Pride Festival in Idaho where a woman saw about 30 people getting into a U-Haul truck with guns and AR-15’s. So she called the police and they stopped them and found out they were on their way to shoot up that Pride Parade in Idaho.”

In spite of their fear, they agreed to host the Sioux Falls event. “We opened up at the first ever Two-Spirit powwow in Sioux Falls. It went off really well,” Mousseau said. However, the grand entry was delayed for two hours she said because the committee was unable to secure a drum group, “Nobody wants to talk about the fact that our culture is really top heavy with that male chauvinism and they really don’t want to deal with the Two Spirit issue.”

Eventually a drum group from Sisseton arrived Mousseau said, “That was really powerful because they (the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate) had just passed the hate crime law. The homophobic transition is really harder on those of us who are fighting against it. The younger generation that is coming behind us isn’t going to feel the things that brought us to our knees.”

The couple has been active advocating for LGBTQ 2T rights for years and when the opportunity to host an event in the Black Hills came up they sought out allies and found one in Eltina Threestars.

Threestars, the Program Manager of Circles of Care Program funded by the Great Plains Tribal Leaders Health Board said she “works to help identify gaps, barriers, stigmas and biases with our relatives accessing Behavioral Health and Treatment Services.”

Threestars said she is a Two Spirit and that it took her 37 years to come out as bi-sexual, “I was so afraid, so I wanted to make sure our relatives have that safe space and they feel comfortable addressing the stigmas, whether it be accessing behavioral health, whether it is talking about their identity or their orientation.”

So when Mousseau and DeLeon came to her with concerns about equal access for the two spirit community she was more than willing to give them a helping hand, “I have always heard about Muffie and Felipe. They had actually reached out to me. They had wanted to address some of the stigma and mental health issues surrounding the LGBTQ community in Rapid City.”

“I told them my program can help you out with fuel cards because they were getting ready to hit the road and I could help them out with that. I believed in what they were doing,” she said and after that they wanted to address these issues in Rapid City and presented the idea of a two-spirit powwow. “I said I am with you one hundred percent.”

The Great Plains Tribal Leaders Health Board wanted to get involved she said and that they offered to pay for the venue, “Pretty soon a lot of the other programs wanted to get involved and it just evolved from there.”

“The powwow will be at the Monument in the Rushmore Hall. There will be ten Unci’s (grandmothers) and we will have a Matriarch breakfast for them followed by a Question and Answer session with the unci’s,” DeLeon said.

Grand Entry starts at 1:00 p.m. and vendors can set up at 10 a.m. There will also be a performance by Motivational Speaker by AJ Douglas a renowned young jingle dress dancer from Canada. The Cornerstone Theater Company will also present their play “Wicoun” a play with and about the Oceti Sakowin at the Bandshell in Memorial Park. There will also be a buffalo feed at 5:00 p.m. with the buffalo being donated by Intertribal Bison Council.

“Historically, the Two-Spirit community has been left out of the Sacred Circle, we are excited to build our momentum and continue to build our base of Two-Spirit relatives the opportunity to participate in the Sacred Circle.”

For further information contact (605) 415-7188

(Contact Ernestine Anunkasan Hupa at editor@nativesunnews.today)

The post ‘Reclaiming our place in the sacred circle’ first appeared on Native Sun News Today.

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