Vancouver Two-Spirit Day hopes to spread nationwide
There’s a call to action to officially recognize Two-Spirit and Indigenous LGBTQIA+ Celebration and Awareness Day (Two-Spirit Day) across Canada.
Vancouver has already recognized the day, doing so in 2022 when a virtual event was held. On March 20, there will be the first in-person event for the day.
Two-Spirit Program Lead with the Community-Based Research Center (CBRC) in Vancouver Lane Bonertz says the day coincides with the spring equinox.
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“The spring equinox is really a time of renewal and it’s really a sign of dynamism of two-spirit people within their own communities,” he told CityNews.
Bonertz and a small team at the CBRC have been engaging with Indigenous elders, knowledge keepers, and academics about two-spirit sexual health for 20 years. He says over that time, there have been growing calls for some sort of day of recognition.
“We really want to see how far this can go because this started in Vancouver as a grassroots initiative and there’s great potential in our own people to make it into something much bigger,” he explained. “We received this gentle yet firm encouragement from these people that we engage with regularly that maybe we were in a position to make something happen.”
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Bonertz continued, “Two-spirit is a distinction and an acknowledgement that Indigenous people have had their own understandings of gender and sexuality long before colonization. We were accepted, we were respected and we were celebrated and for a long time, we felt that was being erased.”
Jaylene Tyme, a Vancouver-based advocate for two-spirit people, says it’s important to recognize Two-Spirit Day and pass on the history and knowledge to a younger generation.
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“It really is an action in decolonizing environments,” she said. “It’s about making sure that those who have felt displaced from the pride of their role as Indigenous, two-spirit people is something that we all need to work together to connect and encourage self-esteem and confidence.”
The CBRC will be hosting an event to celebrate the day on March 20 at the Junction bar in Vancouver’s West End.
Information on a Two-Spirit Day event in Vancouver. (Courtesy: CBRC)
More information on the event can be found on the organization’s social media pages.
