 I'm Linda Quinlan. I think I'm still Keith Gosland. I'm Ann Charles. It's Tuesday, May 21st. Welcome to All Things LGBTQ. Now we'd like to turn to Linda for headlines. Well, I have some national news, and these are the headlines for today. The Rainbow Railroad, Gay Conservatives, Rocket Man, which I can't wait to see, Olympic medalist, Caster Semenya, transgender women murdered, the Trump administration, Andy Velez dies, Doris Day, in the Broadway musical, The Prom, the Texas House passed an extreme religious liberty bill that could legalize discrimination against LGBTQ people, and Alabama Public Television is refusing to air the recent episode of Author featuring a same-sex wedding. So, really? Yes, on to you. So, just so you know, this is not just any television program you're watching. This is the award-winning, All Things LGBTQ, accepting the award. What? I accepted on our behalf, but also receiving awards that night was Jane Lindholm from VPR, Vermont Edition, and Reggie Kondra, who has brought an out-pad podcast. So, we were in good stead. So, I think your expectations are gonna be higher from now on. I'm also looking at events Sunday, June 2nd, 1 o'clock. Come meet us on the Statehouse lawn. We're gonna be celebrating the 50th. Yes, it indeed has been 50 years since the Stonewall riots. And Zach's gonna be putting up a little flyer that you can see the speakers that we've invited a little overview of the day. Also, for events looking at Larks and Ravens, the gender-free contra-dancing at the Capital City Grange, the first, third, and fifth Saturday, starting at eight o'clock. They'll even teach you how to dance. And... I'll be at the farmer's market. Come and see me. Oh, this coming Saturday? Yes. Like the afternoon before this airs. She's having a Doctor Who moment. But upcoming, the girls are gonna be back because they may be doing a drag queen story hour at the Kellogg-Karbrid Library on Saturday, July 13th at 10.30 in the morning, which I know is early for some of you, but... And then they're repeating it in Williamstown. And then when we come back through, I'm gonna talk a bit about some news about HIV and AIDS and the legislation that didn't happen this year that we're gonna be watching and bills that are currently going through in Maine and New Hampshire. And as Professor Charles keeps trying to interrupt me, this week's trivia question. Out in the mountains, May 1988, feature story, the names quilt is nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Who made the nomination? And while it's not a Vermonter, it is someone very much in the news. All right. Now yours. Okay, should we give a little context and say that the girls are Nikki and Emoji, Nikki Champagne and Emoji Nightmare. I thought they should tune in to find out on the air. Okay, okay, I just spilled the beans then. These are my international headlines. Supporters celebrate Taiwan's same-sex marriage law and I have a clip of revelry and tears. News from the international sports world, disturbing news from Turkey and Cuba, citizen activism in Italy and Poland, anti-gay preacher Stephen Anderson banned from Ireland, Bangladesh charges extremists over gay activist murders and deceptive news from Brunei. That is to say, they haven't repealed or withdrawn their draconian law. They postponed the death penalty as a way to placate the international potential hotel goers. But, you know, the law's still on the books and they can revoke it. And they can probably arrest foreigners too, right? For LGBTQ. Right, they're backing off because of the outcry, but it, you know, it's still the same. So you don't get executed, but you'll spend what, 150 years in jail? Well, those are my headlines. And we have the Rainbow Railroad. It's an organization trying to save LGBTQ citizens from hostile governments. As we know, 70 countries, lesbian, gays, bisexual and transgender people live in fear for their freedom in many cases, for their lives. The rainbow railroad functions like the underground railroad that helps slaves sneak across borders. Over six months, many have been helped. In June, Abinac Alies left his old life in Egypt and arrived as a refugee in Toronto as a free person. So, they're also an organization that takes donations. So if you're so inclined, you can look on there. Gay conservatives say that the Equality Act could crush religious freedom. And that Trump has a right to oppose it. They say the Equality Act goes too far and for any level-headed person to agree with it, it blatantly disregards the basic rights to religious freedom. As we all know, the Equality Bill passed the House with all Democrats and eight Republicans voting for it. The Senate, as we know, will not allow it to reach the Senate floor. And even if it did, and even if it did pass, Trump would veto it. And rocket me in. I've seen the trailers and it makes me cry. I mean, I think it's gonna be so much fun, but for anybody interested, it's supposed to have the best male sex scene ever of all time, especially by a major company, a studio, and it's going to be explicit gay male sex. Explicit gay sex? Explicit. And there's multiple scenes of men kissing and simulated oral sex and a steamy bedroom scene with both Edgerton and Madden unclothed. Linda, who's it about, this film? Rocket Man. Well, doesn't everybody know who Rocket Man is? Oh, John. Thank you. Okay. Professor Trials, you definitely need to get out more. Yes, you do. Well, didn't Trump call Kim Jong-un? Rocket Man. See? Entirely different context. Well, of course, but I like context. I'll quiet down right into this. Olympic medalist, Caster Semenyana, loses a landmark gender appeal, casting doubt on future competition. The South African 28-year-old Olympic gold medalist was seeking to overturn a discriminatory new eligibility regulation for females to classify for the sport, which was introduced on April 2018. The new regulations mean that women with higher levels of testosterone will not be able to compete in female races. I have a picture of her. That will go up now. Unless they take- Suppressing medication. No, well, no, they take, what's women's estrogen? To lower their testosterone. Which would be a blocker to the testosterone. Right. Well, I really just think that's totally unfair. I mean, you know. As I've said, it's one more way to interfere with women's bodies. Right. And, you know, I just think it's a terrible precedent to be setting, but anyway. Go ahead, Ann. Keith, sorry. Next. All of a sudden, our seating arrangement got return. So looking at a couple of age-ID and age-related issues that have nothing to do with running, but recently, there was a hearing before the U.S. House representative, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, was questioning the CEO of Gilead, regarding Truvada, which is a PrEP medication, a prophylactic prevent exposure to an infection with HIV. Her question to the CEO was a prescription in the United States per month is $1,700. In Australia, same medication, same prescription. Eight dollars a month. And didn't they say it had something to do with patterns? Patents. Patents, yeah, like where they run out quicker in Australia or something that they do in the, I don't know. And the piece that was brought up in the public hearing is it was public funding and grants that financed the development of this medication. Right. So for this company, it was total profit. So, Canada kind of related, they've changed their blood donation protocols for men who have sex with men so that you basically only have to be abstinent or abstinent for three months, which is a great improvement over the US where initially it was a lifetime ban if you had ever had sex with another man since 1977. Then it was a five-year ban. You had to be celibate for five years, now it's one year. But still, so Canada's moving in the correct direction but they haven't quite landed on something that's truly equitable and based upon science. Exactly. I saw some commentators who said not good enough. Exactly. I mean, because when you look at the guidelines of sexual practices that they're trying to identify if you have engaged in, you know, there were some of those things that they're directing it towards a man who have sex with men only, where it is a practice that is universal. So why are you picking one group? Plus an antibody test they estimate can detect within three to six weeks. So looking at some of the things that are happening here in Vermont, if you have not heard, yes indeed the Scott administration says that 857, the right to abortion, will go into law. He is not going to veto it. There's still some question if he's actually going to sign it or just let it pass into law without a signature. In either case. It's going through. It's happening. Looking at some of the other things that are going on, there was a bill that was introduced, H546, and it had to do with insurance coverage for gender affirmation surgery regardless of age. And I made the presumption that it was seniors who might have been denied coverage. I may have been looking at the wrong end of the spectrum. And not really being at liberty to give a whole lot of details. There is an insurance protocol called a RISA. And it is how insurance is given out. And that goes under federal regs, not Vermont state regs. So the feds may have said, no, we're not covering affirmation surgery. But when the Vermont commissioner in charge of insurance heard about this case, he may have reaffirmed to all of the Vermont insurance companies, we do have parity. This will be covered. You will not discriminate and work to ensure that coverage happened. Good. Every now and then we need to have a good story. Yeah, so with that, I'm going to let you take me to bad places. No, I have a good story about Taiwan same sex marriage law. And now I'd like to show you a clip of people celebrating and it just outlines the whole circumstance in Taiwan. So let's look at that for a second. Same sex marriage is now legal in Taiwan. A historic first for Asia. Thousands of supporters gathered outside of parliament in Taipei Friday, waving rainbow flags and embracing after lawmakers voted to pass a special bill which offers same sex couples similar legal protections for marriage as heterosexuals. Asia's first and way to go, Taiwan were chanted from the large crowd that did not let the weather rain on their parade. The law will take effect after being signed by Taiwan's president who wrote on Twitter following the vote. We took a big step towards true equality and made Taiwan a better country. Taiwan puts on a vibrant pride parade every year, one of Asia's largest. But this vote came after a years long debate on the island over marriage equality. In 2017, the Democratic Island's constitutional court declared same sex couples had the right to legally marry and set a deadline of May 24th for legalization. The ruling sparked heated debates dividing Taiwan. Late last year, Taiwan voters opposed same sex marriage in a series of referendums, defining marriage as that between a man and a woman. But on Friday, lawmakers brushed that vote aside, passing the new law 66 to 27 and giving Taiwan the lead in Asia on same sex unions. Makes you wanna laugh and cry, doesn't it? Very affirming, that's right. Now let's go to news from the international sports world if we could. And I have a follow-up to Linda's story. I'd like to introduce you now to Sprinter Dutti Chand. And there's a picture before you. She's India's first openly gay athlete. She revealed that she's in a relationship with a woman from her village in Odisha state. She's 23 and she said in an interview, I have found someone who is my soulmate. I believe everyone should have the freedom to be whoever they decide they wanna be with. What's interesting, or another interesting fact about this, is that it relates to the Caster Semenya story that Linda just shared because she also has hyperandrogenism, a condition that naturally produces high testosterone levels. She was previously barred from competing under the Association of Athletics Federation's rules and subjected to abuse for being unfeminine. But she won an appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2015, paving the way for athletes with hyperandrogenism to compete in 100 meter and 200 meter races. The decision allowed her to run in the 2018 Asian Games where she won two silver medals. However, this month, as you know, Caster Semenya's appeal was rejected. But Anne Chand said that decision was very sad. So it's... It is very sad. It's awful what they're doing. It seems like kind of an uneven application of rules, too. Now we'd like to go to the next sports first. This is Andy Brennan. He has a picture before you. He's the first footballer from Australia to come out as gay. Throughout my, he says, throughout my whole A-League and football career, I've never known I've met or spoken with an out gay male footballer in Australia. Globally, it's astonishing how few male gay football players have come out during their careers. When I was at the Newcastle Jets, I didn't want to accept my sexuality. At that time, I wanted to separate it from, I'm paraphrasing now, from my sport. But now he's come out and he's very pleased. He says, I'm happier. I couldn't be happier if you said this. Now he's retired? No, no, he's still playing, yeah. Because there are some of us who actually watch Australian rules football at ESPN three at three o'clock in the morning, so you can watch for him. And when you watch the show, you'll see his picture. All right. Now we have another kind of a payback story from Australia. A rugby star was fired following his anti-gay social media post. His name is Israel Folau, and I'm not gonna show his picture to you because he's deplorable and I don't. And I'm not gonna watch him. No, well, he's out, you can't. There we go. He's a devout Christian who's made 73 international appearances for the Wallabies. Well, this is where George the Wallabies. I know who they are, no. Okay, this is his homophobic social media post. He listed drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicator, thieves, atheists, and idolaters. He said to them, hell, await you. And then he continued. He was thrown out of football. He decided not to appeal. Rugby. I'm sorry, rugby. Thank you. I'm not a real sports follower. But he was thrown out of rugby. Usually neither am I. The chief executive of Australia Rugby said, you know, there's no place for, Rugby is, there's no place in Australia Rugby for someone with those views. He was dropped as a brand ambassador by sportswear brand Aussies in the aftermath with the company describing its partnership with a 30-year-old as untenable. So he's out. He's decided not to appeal. He said, if I went back to rugby with all the perks, it would be the work of Satan. When we come to Christ, it's no longer our will anymore. It is always the will of God that comes first year. He's out. Bye-bye. Bad things happened in Turkey. Violence was used against students holding a pride march. 25 people were arrested. And it's heartbreaking to hear that today's pride march, which should have been a celebration of love and solidarity was so violently broken up, said representative from Amnesty International. I'd like to continue if I may. You have a couple of minutes. Okay, let's go to Cuba. Another hotbed of discontent. The Gay Rights Organization there, which is headed by Mariela Castro, canceled their pride march and some rebels held it anyway. There were 100 people who appeared. They made it four blocks. They made it eight blocks and then were stopped by the police. I have a picture before you of someone being arrested at that march. It was organized by on Facebook and WhatsApp. Cuba, as we know, repressed homosexuals in the decades after its 59 revolution, sending many to forced labor camps, but the government has since barred anti-discrimination and Cynisex, Mariela Castro's group, has been internationally recognized, yet they canceled the gay pride march. The other thing about Cuba is that the provision in their constitution that would have affirmed same-sex marriage was taken out because of the evangelical influence in Cuba. They have evangelicals in Cuba? Betcha. And they're growing ranks and they're feeling a lot of pressure because of Trump's stance in that part of the world, particularly against the Venezuelan government. And there's one more thing. It blocked a blade reporter from entering the country. His name is Michael K. Lavers. He's the Washington Blade International News Editor. I've got a picture of him. He was coming to cover the gay community in Cuba. He'd been there seven times and he couldn't get in. So, and then another journalist, Luz Escobar, was arrested because they think he might have had something to do with this alternate march that was broken up. Okay. All right. I'd like to move to citizen activism in my next segment. Okay. Well, as you may or may not recall, there was a transgender woman who was beaten and it was taken, and people had taken on video. He was rescued by some women. She was rescued by some women. And they found her murdered in Dallas this year, this week. And her name was Malaysia Brooker, 23. They found her on the road early on Saturday. Police are saying it was a result of homicidal violence, but they don't know whether the beating and her death are related. So when we get more news on that, we'll certainly keep you updated. I heard they speculated that it was unrelated. Yeah. And we all saw the clip of her being beaten up. Yeah, it was horrible. Yeah. The Trump administration. Now, they're doing this new clever thing where if you're a gay couple and you want to, like in the case of these two men, they had a surrogate mother in Canada. And when they went to get the baby girl and went to the embassy to get her American passport, she was told, they were told that they were asked for the marriage license and they didn't have it with them because they had a little girl, a daughter, from a few years back. And so they didn't think to bring it. And so they go back to the United States and they're told by, I guess there's these new rules that the Trump administration has come up with that if you adopt someone from another country or if you have a surrogate, it doesn't matter whether you're married or not because it would be a child considered out of wedlock. Yeah. So they can't be American citizens. So I know. So anyway, that seems to be a new tactic that they're using. And so anyway. And that's two women? No, this was two men. Okay. It doesn't, it wouldn't matter because the baby. The surrogate was out of the country and not married to one of the donors. So yeah. Yeah. So anyway. And then we have sad news, Andy Velez dies. He was an internationally prominent AIDS activist whose three decades of advocacy work resulted in improved drug access and civil rights for people living with HIV. Especially in the Latino community. He died on May 14th at Mount Sinai, Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan. He was 80. His sons Ben and Abe said the cause of his death was complications arising from a severe fall in his Greenwich Village building in April. Until his recent accident and despite several health challenges, Velez had remained constantly active in the AIDS and social justice communities. Taking part in protests for ACT UP and Rise Up and Resist, Velez was a member of ACT UP joining the group in 1987. It's first year of activity and played a prominent role in the most notorious demonstrations over the past 32 years. And he was involved in the Reclaim Pride Movement that alternate march that we're gonna go to when we go to New York and he went to meetings and we may have seen him in the meeting. We probably did and we went to. Very sad. Very sad. California State Board of Education overhauls sex ed guidance to be more LGBT inclusive. So it goes to California, so it goes to the nation. Absolutely. And another sad story is Doris Day dies at 97 and here are some things that you may or may know about her. She was very close to. Rock Hudson. Rock Hudson. She visited him a few days before he died. She was in pillow talk with him. Love her, come back in. Send me no flowers. And she was his lifelong friend and was an animal activist and also an AIDS activist. And so we say goodbye to her. 97, huh? 96, 97. And also when Ian and I were in Cape Cod, that song kept going through my head. Hey, Sarah. Sarah. In old Cape Cod. Oh, I get it. Now you know why we don't have a musical award. And then we have the Broadway musical prom. A high school PTA decides to cancel the dance rather than allow two girls to attend together. The show's creators, Chad Begulin and Bob Martin started writing a musical eight years ago before same sex marriage was legalized in the United States. They worried that the show might feel irrelevant by now, but they were wrong. The prom just received seven Tony nominations, including Best Musical. Ian and I loved it. If you get to see it, please do, it was really, really good. I have some entertainment news announcements. Sex in the City is starting on June 7th. A new one? Mm-hmm. Or, you know, a version. Yeah. June 9th at the Tony Awards. In June 11th, or 12th is the beginning of Pose, the second. On Fox. Yeah. Yeah. So, a lot to watch in June. The Texas House passed an extreme religious liberty bill this week that could legalize discrimination against LGBTQ people, and it's being called Safe Chick-fil-A. That's what the bill is called. I passed the House on a nearly party line vote, 79 to 62, only one Republican voted against it. The bill is going to pass, let's face it, said Texas Representative Celia Israel Democrat. One was before voting began. It's been cloaked in religious freedom, but the genesis, the nexus of this bill is hatred. So, and then I has one more, oh, about the Alabama Public Television, it's refusing to air the episode of Arthur featuring same sex wedding because it would violate their audience trust. And Arthur is a cartoon? Yes, it is. Yep, yep. You do take it out more. I know. So, looking at Maine, they're about to pass their bill on the Band of Conversion Therapy with minors. It had been through the legislative process about when it got to LePage's desk, he vetoed it. I don't think they're gonna have the same problem with Governor Mills. New Hampshire, they have two pieces of legislation going through. One would allow a gender neutral option on their driver's licenses. You will get to do it here as of July 1st, and then they're also putting a provision in place that someone who identifies as transgender can amend their birth certificate. And that was actually getting a fair amount of pushback from the medical community. We'll watch and see what happens with those. Here in Vermont, the ACLU has challenged the Medicaid division here in the state on their rulemaking and policies. And it's specific to gender-affirming surgeries. And it is, Medicaid has a formulary of those procedures for which coverage will be provided. What the ACLU has discovered is that some of the surgeries associated with gender affirmation are not being included, such as hair removal, shaving of an Adam's apple, feminization of features, there's a whole host of others. So they're challenging them, saying, okay, if these are included under that guise of best practices for gender affirmation, why are you denying coverage? So some of us may be involved in that debate and we will keep you updated. The other bill that got my attention, and it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. And it was a bill about protecting students from bullying. And what it does is it puts a provision in place where if you as a parent feel that the school district has not adequately responded to the harassment and bullying that your child is encountering, there's a whole series of actions that can occur up to and including the school district now needs to pay for the tuition for your child to go to another school district. What's interesting about this bill is that both the lead sponsor and all five co-sponsors are Republicans from conservative districts. What's up with that? They want them to leave the district and go to more liberal schools. Well, and I think what we need to be doing is having a conversation with the Human Rights Commission and looking at the statutory definition in what constitutes bullying and what the underlying implicit biases that's provoking the incident. And we may have an interesting answer. But to you, and I will definitely keep you updated. Yeah, well let's keep you posted. I'm very excited about this citizen activism I'm about to, I mean, you know, it's not earth-shattering, but you know, citizens are active. Let's go first to Italy where the Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini appeared at the World Conference of Families in Verona. And he said that the government would defend the rights of children to have a mother and a father. He had, he had, and so long as I am a minister, wombs for rent do not exist in practice. They are crimes, so he's very anti-choice. So these two young women, Gaia Parisi and Matilda Rizzo, thought they would undermine him a little bit. And I have a picture before you now of the photo bomb. What they did was they approached him. He's the leader of the league party for a selfie. And while he was preparing to smile for the photo, the trap was set by the pair who kissed in front of the camera. So there they are. He's trying to smile and they undermined him. The provocative idea came to our mind because he was clearly standing for the Verona World Conference of Families, they said. We have achieved our goal. We made ourselves heard and this is important. The World Conference of the Family, as we all know, is a U.S. coalition that promotes the values of the Christian right. Its three-day conference in Verona had the backing of the Far Right League, a partner in Italy's coalition government, and attracted neo-fascist groups. Last February, a 15-year-old from Sardinia approached the minister who enjoys posing for selfies with his supporters. As soon as the teenage boy found himself next to Salvini, he recorded a video selfie querying the minister over allegations that the league stole from the Italian state. Salvini walked away. So I love the citizen activism and I like that picture. I think he was. I like the pie in the face of, what's her name? Anita Bryant. Anita Bryant. Remember that? Squeeze the fruit for Amanda, yeah. Well, let's go to Catholic Poland now where we have a little bit of a controversy swirling around the black Madonna of Chestercova. And I knew about this figure, maybe from my Catholic childhood in Buffalo. Your tragic upbringing. Well, Elizabeth Polesna has now been arrested or charged because she set up posters near a church in the city of Ploch in Krakow, Poland on May 6th. Prosecutors, and I suppose I should show you the picture. It's the Madonna and Child with rainbows around them. She's a 51-year-old activist. She placed the posters with altered images of the icon on walls, garbage bins, and mobile toilets near St. Dominic's church in Ploch. She did not physically damage the icon, which was venerated by Pontiffs, including Pope John II. I don't know if that's a good thing for the icon, but let me tell you about it's the icon of the mother god of Chestercova, popularly known as the black Madonna of Chestercova, a painting housed at the Jazznogora Monastery in Chestercova in southern Poland since the 14th century. The case has highlighted the clash between predominantly Catholic Poland and freedom of speech and laws banning hostility against religious beliefs. She defended her action. It's, this is certainly not an attack on religion, certainly not an attack on faith. This is not a form of attack. How can you attack anyone using a picture? Let's be serious, she said. She could face up to two years in prison or stiff fine if convicted. So that's a little guerrilla activism also. I can not. I think we should probably think about finishing up, don't you? We have trivia and we have also interview. Exactly. And we have a very, very good interview with Beverly Little Thunder. I had a lovely conversation earlier in the hour and I'd like to share it with you now. Hi. I'm here with Beverly Little Thunder, two-spirit Lakota elder from Standing Rock, North Dakota. Welcome, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. Second visit, you came as we recall with Rachel Siegel earlier because you're a board member of the Peace and Justice Center. Yes. But here on this interview we're gonna talk more exclusively about you if we could and your activism and your native heritage. And we had a lovely conversation before we started taping about the term two-spirit. And how you happened to, it's history and how you happened to use that, although you also use the term lesbian or? When I first came out, lesbian was the word to use. We met as a group of queer native people and went to the anthropology community because there were only two books that were written at that time. One was living with spirit and spirit in the flesh. And they were written by gay white men. And the terms that they used in their wink thing is a Lakota term that means womanlike. And they just applied it to everything and they also used the term birdash, which when we researched it, found out it meant boy prostitute. And that didn't apply to me at all. And so we all told our stories and said, if you're gonna write about us, write about who we are now. We're living, we're not in the past. So often they anthropologists write about native people as if we're past history. And so we said write about us now. And as a result of that, we were asked to put together a book. And during that time, we decided to use the term two spirit because if you were to identify a room full of native queers, you'd have to identify each one of them by whatever the tribe called them and you could have three pages. So two spirit does not translate into any native language in the United States. And it really isn't just about being non-binary. It has its roots in roles that we played in our communities prior to Western invasion. So it doesn't really translate into non-indigenous culture particularly? No, it doesn't. And actually at Standing Rock, a group of two spirit people made it real clear that this is our marker. And not all native people will use that marker, but if we choose to use it, it is ours. It's not something that we want the wider LPGTQ community to latch onto because it's responsibilities with being two spirit. And it's a tribal role I was reading. It's not, and the other, I was reading that that there's a sexual orientation involved with LGBT and that two spirit is more about gender, more about community, is that it? It's more, it's almost a spiritual role. The men were often the ones who took in orphaned children because prior to invasion, there were always orphan children and they took them in and raised them. The women were often the ones who took care of women's health issues. And they both took care of the elders because if an elderly man or woman had a son or daughter who was killed, then they were left on their own. And so the two spirit people would sort of take them in and help them make sure they had what they needed and cared for them. And that role was considered very, very sacred. So they held a sacred space in the circle of all of the community. And it was very considered very honorable if you had a two spirit person name your baby. They believed that a child was gonna grow up to be very, very special if a two spirit person named that child. One thing we were talking about before we started taping was that even though the name implies a binary, it's a role, a tribal role, but also it embraces gender non-conforming and many different genders, as you were saying. Yes, it does, it does. Yeah, that's an important point to think. It is. You came out as a lesbian in 1980, is that correct? In 1980, and I came out to my community in 1985. You know, coming out is a process. It's not, here I am. Yeah, the whole world knows. It's a process. And in 1988, we had our first two spirit gathering in Minneapolis. There were about 50 queer natives that got together. And since that time, there have been other tribal two spirit groups that have emerged all over the country. There are so many two spirit gatherings happening in the country and in Canada that I can't make it to all of them. But we just had our 30 year reunion in Winnipeg last year and it was quite interesting because they showed a video that was taken at the third gathering in Winnipeg. And boy, some of us have aged. Well, 30 years, I know how that goes. Your list, in your bio it says that you're a founding member of the two spirit gathering movement. Yes, I was one of the first ones there. In the original 50, how did you find each other? At that time, I think it was just through word of mouth. It was just- Even though it was people from all across North America. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, it was pretty incredible that we all kind of wound up together. There's a large group of two spirit people in Minneapolis which is why it started there. A woman named Sharon Day, who is still very active, founded the Native American AIDS Task Force and the AIDS epidemic kind of pulled us all together because it was very devastating to our communities. And I think that was what made a lot of people that are on the reservation open up to the idea that their children might be non-binary because there are so many young men who wanted to go home to die. You also mentioned that the two spirit gathering movement has been helpful for youth. It has been very helpful for youth because they have something to look to. They also now have elders. It's hard to think of myself as an elder and a role model, but I am. And there are many of us. And by the way that we have lived our lives and the roles that we have instilled ourselves into in the bigger community has set a model for a lot of those young people. And I saw that very clearly when I was in Winnipeg this last year. It made me smile. The first gathering we had, one of our meetings was upstairs over a bar. And alcoholism and drug use was rampant. And matter of fact, when I first came out, the only place that I ever saw another native, queer native, was in a bar. And they were sloppy drunk. And because I had grown up on a spiritual path, I was really disturbed to see that because I didn't, that wasn't me. So it took me a long time to reconcile the fact that I could be too spirit and sober. You also founded the first and only all women's Sundance in the world. Yes. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Well, that was because when I came out to my community in 85, I was told that women like me were taken out and shot. By the native people whom you came over to? And mainly the women. Really? And the women said, you know, we always saw you as one of the strongest women we knew. And now this. And I said, I'm stronger now than I ever have been. And I decided that I wasn't gonna give up my sexuality or my spirituality. And I knew the ceremony well enough that I started. And we're in our 30th year. Also your 30th year. Yeah, also our 30th, 32nd year, yes, 32nd year. You meet in various localities. Well, we used to. But now living here in Vermont, we have land and we have a permanent arbor. And we have planted all the trees around the arbor. And the center tree was only three feet tall when we planted it 15 years ago. It's now over 60 feet tall. Oh my gosh. And so we host the ceremony there. This year it's July 13th through July 20th. And if you go on the website, Kunsi Kea, you can find more information about it. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You've also written a memoir called One Lead at a Time. Yes. Published in 2016. Mm-hmm. It's an oral memoir. Yes. Can you tell us how you happened to accomplish that? The woman who put it to words insisted that I needed to write the story. And so she sat down and we did 20 hours of recording with me just talking. And she organized it and it was verbatim. And she put it to a book form. Is it organized chronologically or circular or is it? Organized chronologically. Uh-huh. And actually I'm working on writing a second book because after it was written I realized that wasn't the end of my life. There was a whole lot more that has happened since then. Where does the first memoir end? You know, I can't remember. I just read one where the woman ends when she's 40 and that's just the beginning. That was probably about, that was probably about the time that mine ended. Uh-huh. It's hard to remember. Yeah, I know and there's definitely more to tell. I didn't tell as much about the Sundance as I wanted to and so that's gonna be a large part in the progress of how that has come to be. I mean, it's gone through a lot of changes. You know, we also, we welcomed trans women coming in and that was the whole community had to come to terms with that and had to be accepting of that. Was it controversial? There were a couple of women who were very, very against it but the majority had no problem with it and now one of our head dancers is a trans woman and she works at the native college in Montana and so we're in the middle of discussing inviting two-spirit indigenous men and it's gonna take a couple of years talking. I don't know what people are so afraid of. I know it and you and I are Facebook friends and I remember you posted a pro-terrain Facebook post and there was a lot but the opposition seemed to be from Anglo women. Yes, mostly. Yeah, it is and this last year we had 90% women of color and 10% white women whereas 30 years ago it was the opposite. So that's been really a change and a shift. Is there anything else you'd like to tell us? We have a minute left, so. I think that the most important thing is that in the LBGT community there still is a lot of racism and the racism is something that we all need to work on. The earth and the climate change is essential that we come together. It's essential that we all start working to preserve the earth that we live on and so I've been putting a lot of energy into that. You are an activist, not only about many issues you're gonna speak at our Stonewall 50 rally and next week that we'll talk about when we get to the show and we appreciate that and you spoke to the Women's March? Yes, I did. I did and when I leave here, I'm gonna be speaking with the abortion Planned Parenthood I saw that that's happening, yeah. Although Governor Scott has just revealed he's not gonna veto it. Yes, right. That's good. Yes. Well, I appreciate your joining us and I hope you'll come back and tell us when the next memoir comes out. I will, I will, thank you for having me. Thank you. Well that was really good, I really like her a lot. In that conversation started prior to the actual taping of the interview and then long after the taping had closed so that there was more conversation about two-spirit and that growing part within the First Nation community. And you can feel her spirituality when she's in the room. I know. You know, it's amazing. What a lovely person, yeah. And a strong activist. Yeah. She didn't talk about how there are times that the LGBTQ community, we tend to have blinders on in this sense of, you know, and I think it was more of the off-camera interview. White entitlement where, you know, here she was invited to be the grand marshal for the Pride Parade in Burlington in TV Bank was their corporate sponsor and TV Bank is responsible for the desecration of her homeland. Right. Of her sacred space. And, you know, she was able to show her philosophy though because when she mentioned that speech, she said, you know, she confronted the issue head on and the idea of cast out your bucket or cast down your bucket where you are. You know, she started this whole Sundance Women Only Sundance event in Vermont because she was, you know, living here in Vermont. They have lay in that, you know, they are trying to save as a legacy for other activist women. So it's really. Cast down your bucket where you are. Yeah. So the answer to the trivia question. Yes. Little hint, where might the names quilt be stored? Someone in the news a great deal who nominated the quilt in 1988 for Nobel Peace Prize. It might have been a much younger representative, Nancy Pelosi. I was surprised. I mean, it makes sense once you say it, but I was sort of like, wow. I mean, it's sort of that piece of history that we forget. Yeah. Well, thank you Nancy. So with that. Thank you for joining us. We've come to the close of our show. And as Beverly would say, cast your bucket down where you are and resist.