Courtesy SKINS, SFSU
From L to R: Betty Parent; Ari Antone-Ramirez; Aidan Dunn Flagbearer. The Rainbow Flag is carried by Morningstar Vancil and the Eagle Staff by Edwin Gill.
The San Francisco State University Pow Wow, held annually in the spring, set a bit of history on May 15th as the first non Two Spirit pow wow to include the Rainbow Gay Pride Flag.
According to this year’s Head Dancer, Aidan Dunn (Osage), “the SFSU Pow wow committee has decided to de-gender their dance categories. For instance, the category formerly known as “Women’s Fancy Shawl” will now be simply ‘Fancy Shawl’. Most people probably won’t notice this difference, because it won’t cause any big changes in the way the dance categories work–but inclusive language matters a lot, because it can be used to include or exclude,” said Dunn.
Dunn said that changing a few words would enable pow wow organizers to open the circle a little wider to embrace more community members.
“This allows pow wow dancers to dance in whatever category they are called to dance, even if it isn’t what we might expect for their gender. SFSU is taking a bold step toward making Two-Spirit, LGBTQ, and gender-nonconforming pow wow dancers feel welcome in the arena. The Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits (BAAITS) Pow wow took this step last year but, to my knowledge, there are no ‘straight’ powwows anywhere in the US or Canada that currently do this.”
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The inclusion of the Rainbow Flag in Grand Entry proceedings represents the inclusion of Two Spirits in the proceedings and that the circle welcomes all respectful gender expressions.
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Additionally, the BAAITS pow wow, the first public LGBTIQA+ pow wow on Turtle Island, has been generating more and more success as early 3,500 dancers attended the festivities held at Fort Mason this past March.
Some family arbors at pow wows on the West Coast have displayed the flag as a sign of solidarity to the community or to identify LGBTIQA+ safe spaces. The University of Saskatchewan was the first to include the flag at a pow wow in Canada.
Two-Spirit Flag.
I love this, setting an example of inclusivity.
And really, doesn’t sound like they’re having a hard time implementing the changes!
rq:
No, NDNs don’t tend to fuss over such things. It’s easy enough to be inclusive, and wacipis (pow wows) are very important, culturally and traditionally. Removing ‘women’s’ from Fancy Shawl won’t change anything -- people who were going to do that dance will still do it, it’s just a matter of making everything more welcoming and inclusive.