Statement in support of our trans+, Two-Spirit, and Indigiqueer community members:
These are troubled and troubling times, but such times also remind us what matters most. Amidst the rising tide of settler colonial transphobia, homophobia, racism, and anti-immigrant rhetoric at the highest levels of government in Canada and elsewhere across the industrialized West, the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies stands in firm and unflinching solidarity with all our trans+, Two-Spirit, Indigiqueer, nonbinary, and LGBTQIA+ students, colleagues, community partners, friends, allies, and kin. As a community and an academic unit we remain steadfast in support of trans, queer, and Two-Spirit peoples’ vital and visionary contributions to Indigenous empowerment, political sovereignty, and cultural repair and restoration. We also recognize that one of settler colonialism’s most painful impacts on Indigenous nations has been the internalization of colonial bigotries about gender and sexuality, and we understand that addressing those forms of hatred and violence are also necessary to genuine decolonization and self-determination. We are firmly committed to supporting all our community in this time of ascendant cruelty, colonial apologetics, historical illiteracy, and willful ignorance, and we remain clear in the knowledge that a truly transformative solidarity is essential to our shared realization of dignity, justice, and liberation.