TWO SPIRIT CIRCLE OF DETROIT- 2SLGTBQIA

Mission - Vision: To restore Traditional Teachings honoring the fluid & diverse nature of gender. To honor and incorporate the Traditional 2S with the contemporary 2SLGBTQI. To celebrate and honor the continuum of gender identification and expression. To reclaim the roles and responsibility of the 2S.

Two Spirit People: Who we are.
We  are a living culture with a long history of Traditions and  Responsibilities. For many generations our parents and grandparents  pushed our Two Spirit Culture underground, not out of shame but out of  survival because our Two Spirit people were persecuted when the  Europeans took over our land. We were underground for such a long time  our people forgot we existed and why we were underground to begin with  so when we resurfaced we were met with the shame and hostility they were  taught by Western Religion in the Indian Residential Schools. Even  though some of our Elders and the Old Ones started remembering us and  standing up for us we had to fight and pray our way back to reclaim our  rightful place in the Circle, we had to be confident enough to pick up  Bundles and Spiritual responsibilities, to know our Medicines, and to  understand our roles.

What Two Spirit is:
*Two  Spirit is an English umbrella term to reflect and restore Indigenous  traditions honoring the fluid and diverse nature of gender and our  connection to community and spirituality.
*We  celebrate and honor the continuum of gender identity and expression; we  do so without following the colonized way of thinking.
*Two Spirits are balance keepers co-existing in balance with both a female and male spirit.
*A Two Spirit person may be gay but a gay person isn’t necessarily Two Spirit.
*Two Spirit is an actual social role we hold in our community; therefore it is an Indian thing.

The Phoenix represents the Rebirth of the Two Spirit Nation, it represents transformation, death, and rebirth in its fire, it is symbolic of the sun, which “dies” in setting each night only to be reborn in rising the next morning; the Wings represent the Rainbow Pride Colors, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, blue for harmony and purple for spirit. (The best-known, six-stripe version of the rainbow pride flag was established in 1979); the Tail represents the Ojibwe Medicine Wheel 7 Sacred Directions Teachings, Yellow - East, Red - South, Black – West, White – North are the 4 Cardinal Directions, Blue represents Father Sky in the upper realm, Green represents Mother Earth below, and purple represents the self, that spirit that journeys in this physical world, at the center of the wheel; the Pink Triangle represents the LGBTQI communities in the Nazi concentration camps, originally intended as a badge of shame but has since been reclaimed as a positive symbol of self identity,each of these have teachings and opens up dialogue.