May 2024 Update

ID: "May Monthly Update www.freedomoklahoma.org/news” with our logo and a background image of the Love Letters to Nex art table from our 2024 TDOV event in Tulsa

Why is a 2SLGBTQ+ advocacy org talking about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives?

This month on May 5, folks across Turtle Island will lift up the advocacy and efforts to disrupt the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous relatives (MMIR, also abbreviated MMIWG2S+). If you’re reading this newsletter, curious why a 2SLGBTQ+ advocacy org is talking about MMIR, we’d ask you to be more curious about why all 2SLGBTQ+ advocacy groups aren’t talking about MMIR, something that concretely is an issue at the intersection of Indigenous and Two Spirit, Indigiqueer, Indigenous LGBTQ+ identities. Many LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations, don’t even include Two Spirit people in their acronym, don’t name them in their work, or tack them on to the end as an afterthought. So, as we enter May, not only are we asking you to do some deep intersectional movement work in learning from MMIR advocates, we’re also asking you to, again, help us call on folks across the movement to put 2S at the front of this work.

We’ll note, it took Freedom Oklahoma longer as an institution longer than any of our current staff would have liked to make Two Spirit part of our acronym (October 2020) and to add it to the front (November 2021). Freedom Oklahoma is committed to building an Oklahoma where all 2SLGBTQ+ people have the safety to thrive, by working with, not on behalf of our community. We know that future is not possible if that work does not center the most historically excluded members of our community, especially Black transgender people, Two Spirit people, and disabled 2SLGBTQ+ people. We understand that lived equity work fails to be meaningful if it does not lead with anti-racism work, specifically anti-Black racism. We know that as an organization Freedom Oklahoma has failed to do this in different iterations of our work, and in doing so our organization has not been a welcoming place for historically excluded members of our community and those who live at the intersection of more than one marginalized identity. And, we make a commitment to continuing to do better, while working to repair harm, when we know better. That’s why when we talk about the end goal of our work being Two Spirit, transgender, and queer liberation, it’s important you understand for us that work is rooted in Black and Indigenous liberation. We acknowledge our work is incomplete until our undocumented 2SLGBTQ+ community members live with the safety and security of their liberation. We want to engage in the work, with anti-racism as the foundation for the ways we operate and work to heal the harm the organization has done, and in all likelihood will at times continue to do. We commit to this work, not because we believe we can do it perfectly, but because we understand that we must root our work in anti-racism in order to ever achieve the safety and equality we envision for our community.

And we know, asking folks to add Two Spirit to the front of how we talk about community, is not a perfect next step, nor will it mean inclusion and equity in spaces that have been hostile to or inaccessible to Two Spirit, Indigiqueer, and Indigenous LGBTQ+ people. And, having 2S at the front demands we have conversations about what Two Spirit means, about the long history of existing outside of and beyond a binary with regard to gender and sexuality on this land we occupy. Adding 2S to the front forces organizations and individuals to build relationship with Indigenous community, to seek out Indigenous knowledge, and to frame the story of our movement and our liberation in its Indigenous roots, demanding we work beyond exclusionary frameworks like equality in front of the legal systems of colonizing states and nations or arbitrary things like borders. Our fight for liberation doesn’t stop at the Red River or when you cross the panhandle. It doesn’t exist for only the folks in West Siloam and not Siloam Springs, or only for South Coffeyville but not for Coffeyville.

When we first shared news of Nex Benedict’s death with you this year, we initially got Nex’s tribal affiliation wrong. And while we apologize for that error, we also knew from the beginning how critical it was to talk about Nex’s Indigeneity. Because, without mentioning it, we know it’s not only possible, but likely, that Nex’s Indigeneity would have never been reported at all. We know that a key piece of telling Nex’s story, of keeping Nex’s memory alive, is talking about the disproportionate harm Indigenous students face in colonial-constructed public school systems, in having the harm they face discounted or exacerbated by police, in having their Indigeneity left out of the narrative. We can't talk about Nex's story without the context of the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR) and the importance of Two Spirit and Indigiqueer spaces. We hope as you grieve and organize, next steps will include and center leaders in the MMIR movement, as well as leaders cultivating space for Indigenous 2SLGBTQ+ youth.

Here are some Indigenous-led organizations, Indigenous organizers, and Indigenous content creators we continue to learn from in our work, and would recommend as those looking for a place to start in your journey of understanding and working to disrupt the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives, in bringing 2S to the front, and in honoring the long and ongoing presence of Two Spirit and Indigiqueer people as we work to center them in our movement: