SUMMER 2016 / SPECIAL ISSUE community by developing a Center of curriculum. Matt Ignacio, MSSW, chaired NEWSLETTERExcellence for Racial and Ethnic Minority the committee of content experts for this DIRECTOR’S CORNER In this special issue we are focusing YMSM and other LGBTQ Populations to new curriculum, and Lena Thompson, on the needs of Native Lesbian, Gay, enhance knowledge and improve skills MPH, and Donna Dorothy facilitated Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning among behavioral health professionals this work. Last year we organized a (NLGBTQ), or Two-Spirit community working with these clients. Training of Trainers (TOT) to pilot the members. It is with a very heavy heart In order for behavioral health material with an audience of experienced that I start this letter only a few weeks professionals to better serve the behavioral health professionals who after the Orlando Massacre, which was a NLGBTQ/Two-Spirit community, are familiar with the needs of LGBTQ direct attack on our LGBTQ identified we need to understand the history identified clients, and we have been friends, colleagues, family members, and and the traumas inflicted on the tribal working to implement their feedback. leaders. This traumatic event reminds us communities in general, and the Our goals for this newsletter are how important it is to better NLGBTQ/Two-Spirit communities to provide an introduction to the understand the needs in particular. We explore some of curriculum, the process used to of these community the history of Native LGBTQ develop it, and an overview of specific members, and to perspectives and the concept issues facing the NLGBTQ/Two- improve our skills of “Two-Spirit” in this issue. Spirit community. We hope that this in supporting The term “Two-Spirit” was curriculum, when published in fall those clients created in 1990 at the Third of 2016, will be widely adopted in who identify Annual Inter-Tribal Native behavioral health and primary care as LGBTQ. I American/First Nations settings. believe it is crucial Gay and Lesbian Gathering to Regards, to the mission of describe and honor the traditions the National American Anne Helene Skinstad of gender in Native American Indian and Alaska Native cultures. It is important to remember that ATTC to facilitate the development of not all NLGBTQ individuals identify a workforce that will be sensitive to the as Two-Spirit. Some have negative needs of the NLGBTQ/Two-Spirit associations with this descriptor, communities both on and off tribal land. and providers should ask I would also like to point out the work and honor clients’ own of the National Association of Gay and description of their sexual Lesbian Addiction Professionals and their orientation and/or gender Allies (NALGAP), which provides identity. NATIVE LGBTQ resources to support people working with It was with this in mind LGBTQ clients who have behavioral that our Center began to health disorders. SAMHSA has also develop a NLGBTQ/ AND TWO-SPIRIT acknowledged the importance of Two-Spirit-focused understanding the needs of the LGBTQ National American Indian and Alaska Native Addiction Technology Transfer Center . University of Iowa . 1207 Westlawn . Iowa City, IA 52242 Phone: 319-335-5564 . Fax: 319-335-6068 . Email: [email protected] . Website: attcnetwork.org/americanindian CREATING WELLNESS FOR LGBTQ AND TWO-SPIRIT INDIVIDUALSBy: Rick Haverkate, MPH; Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians Photo: Shutterstock It’s the year 1992. A guy named Bill Clinton is running for how to roll a condom on a banana and even how to stretch a President, and he and his young wife seem to actually like folks dental dam over a plastic anatomically correct model. I could like me. I think they’ve actually held formal campaign meetings convince my Native mentors and leading HIV/AIDS advocates and talked about ways to improve our lives. I can’t believe it’s that I was a true public health professional. But I was still true. Someone – albeit a saxophone playing politician that no the emperor wearing his new clothes. I was naked out there one outside of Arkansas has ever heard of – but someone in front of everyone. It was just a matter if time, I thought, who has a serious chance of becoming President of the United until someone called me out. Out as gay. Out as not “Indian States of America, is actually talking about gays and lesbians, enough.” Out as not actually close enough to HIV/AIDS to and HIV/AIDS, and he’s saying these things publicly with be able to proselytize about prevention, treatment, care, or major news reporters and cameras present. I have this strong cultural competency. I barely had any real sexual experience let feeling that this decade is going to become known as the “Gay alone direct knowledge of the prime venues for HIV exposure 90s.” I’m in my late 20s, a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe like bathhouses, big city nightclubs, parks, or the injection drug of Chippewa Indians; I’ve lived my whole (closeted) life in small world. Working as a health educator brought me close to the towns on the shores of Lake Superior. Now I’m heading off to great public health thinkers and Indigenous traditionalists, but Hawai`i to earn my master’s degree in public health (MPH), and also brought me terrifyingly close to my insecurities about my it looks like I might actually have some reason to believe that homosexuality and my ultimate outing to my co-workers and the American dream also belongs to me. I’ve wanted out of my family. How, I thought, could I keep fostering HIV/AIDS small town, full of good people with seemingly trivial minds, prevention while advocating for more acceptance of people for years, and now my chance has arrived. who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and/or Two- By the time I started my MPH in the fall of 1992 I’d been Spirit (LGBT2-S), and not be forced to accept my sexuality? a community health educator for my own tribe, served in a Until the time I left for graduate school – just after the country state-wide tribal role in American Indian health promotion and learned that Bill Clinton was the Democratic nominee for disease prevention, and even taken a national part in HIV/ President – I had come out to only a small handful of friends. AIDS education and prevention for people of color. However, When the Gay 90s got into full roar after that 1992 election, I’d always felt like a fraud. Sure, I could talk about the science and after I’d been exposed to the Aloha of Hawai`i and found of HIV; I knew the transmission routes; I could demonstrate a new Ohana of LGBT2-S, did I have the courage to fully 2 National American Indian and Alaska Native Addiction Technology Transfer Center . University of Iowa . 1207 Westlawn . Iowa City, IA 52242 come out. I learned shortly afterward that I’d offended many “From beginning to end we must think of my close friends by not trusting them enough to share one of the very basic parts of my humanness with them. They felt of and honor those who have not made betrayed. I had been afraid that I would be cast off if I came out, but instead of the screenplay I’d created in my own mind – it this far; those who struggled with their where I scolded them for not accepting my gayness – they were identity and their illness. We need to now scolding me for not accepting their unconditional love. How shamefully divine. acknowledge our love for them and Popular and progressive western culture has a knack for portraying the gay community as affluent, young, upwardly grieve their passing, remembering mobile and blemish free. According to them, people in the them always.” gay community drive fancy cars, wear expensive clothes, take These heroes frequent and extravagant vacations, carouse at hip restaurants, in public health rarely work, and always live the hi-life. I find it odd that in taught me that we these pictures, gay individuals seem to be surrounded by all have a part to play, no look-alike friends, yet inexplicably have no identifiable family matter the feelings of inadequacy that creep into our thoughts, joining in the festivities. These distorted images of the “gay in keeping our rainbow communities educated and healthy. We lifestyle” use mostly gay white men, and it seems only in the are all responsible for taking up the charge and playing our role. last 15 years have women and people of color been shown Over the many years spent working in tribal communities, and in gay-positive advertisements or on magazine covers. Even for other government and non-government agencies at the worse is the fact one rarely sees our transgender and Two- state and national level, whether helping to gather data, building Spirit siblings in the media. The affirming side is that I do resources, designing curricula, or developing policy, I’ve often see the LGBT2-S community represented tried to keep mindful of the need to address in a positive light, but not dissimilar to the the individual and the key factors that general public, we don’t frequently see contribute to Two-Spirit challenges full inclusion of our diversity. In my related to substance use. There is opinion LGBT2-S folks are seen as a lack of knowledge and lack of having three positions in popular ease that healthcare providers, culture: (1) white, male, and educators, law enforcement and privileged; (2) colorful Mardi even parents have in providing Gras oddities; or (3) sex- and services for the LGBT2-S drug-addicted pedophiles.