Gochman Family Collection

Queer History of Turtle Island

Since time immemorial, Indigenous nations on Turtle Island have accepted and often celebrated non-binary individuals and sexualities. These individuals were respected healers, visionaries, and artisans in their communities - key figures responsible for ensuring their people’s spiritual well-being. The arrival of Europeans to Turtle Island and subsequent Christianization and colonization led to the widespread suppression of same sex relationships and gender-fluid Indigenous traditions. But even as colonial power became entrenched on Turtle Island, expressions of underground queer culture flourished in other social circles. Miss Chief’s Queer History of Turtle Island seeks to share and honour key moments in North American LGBTQ2S+ history from pre-contact to the present and into the future.

The Examination

In a dramatic scene set inside an Indigenous earthen lodge, a dozen settler males jostle for view during an invasive examination of Miss Chief’s private anatomy. The physicians, scientists, and priests express shock, bewilderment, and enthusiasm at the revelation of Miss Chief’s biological sex, their curiosity having been aroused by the allure of her ravishing genderfluid appearance. Miss Chief rises to the occasion, revelling in the melodrama unfolding around her. Unabashedly she parts her thighs, willingly offering the excited men a generous view. While one of her warrior lovers, naked except for war paint, bursts into the scene to protect her from what must surely be a non-consensual act, another of his non-binary lovers clutches his muscular thigh, perhaps in jealousy, or to prevent further violence.

In the nineteenth century, medical doctors and academics such as William Alexander Hammond, Stephen Powers, and A.B. Holder subjected non-binary Indigenous people to anatomical examinations to determine their genders. Settlers also forced Indigenous people on reserves and in residential schools to comply with binary definitions of sex and gender.

Seizing the opportunity to seduce rather than being victimized, Miss Chief refutes colonized sexuality and takes control of the scene.