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“LGBTQ2S”: Law School Distributes Guidelines On How Students Should Deal With Their “Colonial” Past

Schulich_School_of_Law_Logo.pngThe Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University in Canada has a course for law students on Aboriginal & Indigenous Law in Context class. As part of that course, students were given a list of suggestions by the professor for dealing with their colonial pasts and acknowledging indigenous peoples.  This includes a suggestion to “update your email signature to reflect the territory you live and work on.”  One of the points included a new category for recognition (at least in my experience).  The school told students “when discussing LGBTQ issues, always include two-spirited peoples (LGBTQ2S).”

While there are references to this course title on Facebook and the university newspaper, I only found on optional course on the topic by a different name, though the content has been controversial.  I actually think that an optional course on aboriginal law is a great idea.  My main interest with the reference to the additional category on student identification.

I had not heard of the two-spirited peoples category or that it is now LGBTQ2S. Here is one definition that I located on a LGBTQ site (thought not aLGBTQ2S site):

“Two-spirited” refers to a person who has both a masculine and a feminine spirit, and is used by some First Nations people to describe their sexual, gender and/or spiritual identity. As an umbrella term it may encompass same-sex attraction and a wide variety of gender variance, including people who might be described in Western culture as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, gender queer, cross-dressers or who have multiple gender identities. Two-spirited can also include relationships that would be considered poly. The creation of the term “two-spirited” is attributed to Albert McLeod, who proposed its use during the Third Annual Inter-tribal Native American, First Nations, Gay and Lesbian American Conference, held in Winnipeg in 1990.

Other sites however stress that only certain people can claim to be two spirited and using the term can be a form of cultural appropriation:

If you are not a member of a First Nations tribe, then it is not liberatory to use the term “Two Spirit.” If you did not descend from their ancestors and their struggles, and if you do not understand the history of their tribes or their words, then they are not yours to use and your use of the terms is theft, or what is called cultural appropriation. All to often, we appropriate words, customs and clothes from other cultures without the context to really know their implications. Of course we are not saying that the term is or should be patented in some way, but we are asking you to consider the similarity between using this term and, say, wearing a headdress. Consider the impact, rather than your intention.

The law school also encourages  students to oppose political figures and policies that do not conform with the support of indigenous peoples as well as buying items such as “a dreamcatcher or a pair of earrings” from indigenous artists. That last item is interesting because students and faculty are increasingly facing criticism of cultural appropriation in wearing items (here) or working out or eating food (here and here and here) or even hair styles deemed associated with particular groups.

As for LGBTQ2S, (and this admittedly may be my aging brain) but at some point the term is going to get too long to say, let alone remember.

95 thoughts on ““LGBTQ2S”: Law School Distributes Guidelines On How Students Should Deal With Their “Colonial” Past”

      2. They are reporting on the findings from the Oxford committee. It is not their original reporting. As i said, I posted it for the few who are still sane on this site. Good day.

  3. This stuff would be downright amusing if its nutjob perpetrators weren’t so serious about it.

    1. “…just dumb.”

      Not ——- criminal and insane.

      Says, PCS, the dispassionate purveyor of understatement.

  5. Yeah, and I just bet they will leave out the story of the Weenofukkee Tribe, who were a fierce and warlike tribe who lived in what is now Nova Scotia. They were Christianized by Father Francis Folle’ who was a little light in the sandals, if you know what I mean. Father Folle’ latched onto the “two spirits” thing, and within about 20 years had over half the braves in the tribe wearing dresses and acting like squaws. Talk about laissez les bottoms rouler! Whew!

    Then one night, the savage Mohicans, who used to be afraid to confront the Weenofukkees, became emboldened and raided their territory! The Weenofukkee bravettes fought . . . well. . .bravely, and hurled their beads and cookware at the Mohicans, but beads and cookware are no match for tomahawks and gunstock war clubs.

    Soon, the fight was down to the Mohicans and the few remaining “one spirit” Weenofukkee braves who put up one hell of a fight, but they were simply out numbered! The Mohicans killed them all, and stole the women and the land. Oh, and they also had the good sense to kill Father Folle’.

    I just bet that you will never hear that story!

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

      1. Oh, I wish I had thought of that, but after the ” laissez les bottoms rouler!” pun, I could not stop giggling and my brain shut down.

        But OMG, the “original” bump stock! How funny!

        Squeeky Fromm
        Girl Reporter

    3. Squeek – LOL – you MUST get published – share your gift with a wider audience =)

  7. Once again, LGBTQ is pushing the “teaching & learning.” Yeah, now its the “two-spirit” flavor.

    I’ve been researching an isolated Indian tribe located in the Peru Amazon. The Mashco-Piro can’t read or write. At best they can count to 5. There’s no hospitals, police stations, grocery stores or Internet down here. If LGBTQ wants to meet & argue with the Mashcos, then there are only 2 possible outcomes. The Mashcos will kill them on the spot or abduct them & reverse assimilate them into the tribe, never to be seen or heard from again. Check out this rare video of the Mashco-Piro.

    2. “This constraint explains a number of very surprising features of Pirah grammar and culture: the absence of numbers of any kind or a concept of counting and of any terms for quantification, the absence of color terms, the absence of embedding, the simplest pronoun inventory known, the absence of relative tenses, the simplest kinship system yet documented, the absence of creation myths and fiction, the absence of any individual or collective memory of more than two generations past, the absence of drawing or other art and one of the simplest material cultures documented, and the fact that the Pirah are monolingual after more than 200 years of regular contact with Brazilians and the TupiGuaranispeaking Kawahiv.”

      http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/431525

    3. This is from “First Encounters” on Netflix..great flick, wish we could watch stuff like this all the time. These people are so much more reasonable than the drama queens that Western Culture have made out of the affected “indigenous” people.

  8. goofiness is a positive virtue. Don’t spread it around, but the “vir” in “virtue” is Latin for “man.”

  9. “Two-spirited” refers to a person who has both a masculine and a feminine spirit, and is used by some First Nations people to describe their sexual, gender and/or spiritual identity. ”

    ******************

    Oh, it does not. I refers to folks like me who indulge in Dewars and Jack Daniels!

  10. “As for LGBTQ2S, (and this admittedly may be my aging brain) but at some point the term is going to get too long to say, let alone remember.”

    Just use the mathematical lemniscate symbol for infinity (not available on my keyboard, unfortunately). Either that or take the advice of Howard Beal:

    “You’ve got to say, ‘I’m a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!’ So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, ‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”

  12. There has been some discussion on other blogs of whether it is best to label one’s self and others, or if a label only builds a wall around someone classifying them by only one of their attributes. It should make no difference if someone is a city’s first female African American transgender mayor, but only if she is an effective and competent mayor.

  13. The treatment of indigenous people around the world by their conquerors’ greedy lust for wealth and power is the world’s greatest collective sin. But, I’m not sure this is the way to handle it.

    1. Huh? Your sure about the former but not the latter? If one were to follow your logic, then you handle it by taking the wealth and power from the collective and give it back to those indigenous people. Perhaps starting with you.

      2. It would be a great idea except most of the indigenous people are long dead, the crimes against them having been perpetrated for hundreds of years.

    2. “The treatment of indigenous people around the world by their conquerors’ greedy lust for wealth and power is the world’s greatest collective sin.”

      *****************************
      See Hobbes, Thomas, “State of Nature.” And welcome to the world without the moderating effects of the modern West.

      1. Malthus, Darwin, and Wallace (Darwin and Wallace derived from Malthus) did a pretty good job of debunking Kats’ grievance against humanity’s “sin” regarding the alleged “conquerors.”

          1. Actual Darwinism will eventually deal with social Darwinism. By the way: The spell-correct automatically capitalized Darwinism for me — THREE times so far — which means that you had to go to the trouble of uncapitalizing it. Hmmm. You must be an anti-capitalist.

      2. LOL. The world that is slowly poisoning itself to death due to the moderating effects of the modern west.

    3. Always been that way (see the beginning of Kubrick’s 2001) and it’ll always be that way.

      If you’re gonna invoke Biblical concepts such as “sin,” maybe you should ask God why he, she, or LGBTQ2S (I had to copy & paste that) created conquerors.

      1. If an individual says, “I am going to support the lesser of two evils” it is a public confession they are one who supports evil having defined it by their own standards. If they say ‘let’s compromise” they have chosen one of two wrong answers and turned their back on tne correct answer. Two modern words that demonstrate this are bi-partisan and cross-partisan which are defined as agreeing with me is the only choice. To end the Nuremberg Defense is an open admission of guilt with an attached plea for leniency.

        1. In architecture school, we had a saying: Two Wongs don’t make a Wright. That’s a gag about Wucious Wright and Frank Lloyd Wong. It kills in second year design theory.

  14. And if a student questions or criticizes the necessity of such policy they face expulsion or arrest under Canadian “hate speech” laws for the incitement of racial hatred.

    And if one criticizes such laws, they are probably a Nazi. Even an old school liberal like the good professor Turley.

  16. So we’re always hearing about this crazy uber PC crap from Canada – but thus far I have not read a story about the Francophone region – are they holding fast against this nonsense?

    1. @autumn
      I’m quite familiar with the Bloc Quebecois and Quebec affairs, they are arguably worse than English Canada on the PC front.

      1. Thanks Antonio for the feedback. Sorry to hear they are falling for PC fascism as well…

  17. Dear Prof. Turley: As a graduate of that Law School…though quite a few years ago now…I was interested in this story. I checked the university web page, but the mandatory courses do not include the one you name…indeed they are silimar to those I took so long ago. There are a number of optional courses on Aboriginal Law (and gender stuff) but I didn’t see the actual course you mentioned. I am wondering where you saw this as i would like to follow-up. Cheers.

    PS: I will try to provide a link to the university Courses page so you can check. Regards.

    https://www.dal.ca/faculty/law/current-students/jd-students/course-information.html

  19. at some point the term is going to get too long to say, let alone remember.

    At some point all those letters and numbers will get reclassified into one actual word:

    schizophrenic

          1. Ouch! I realize it’s believed men do most of their thinking with that part of their anatomy, but I didn’t know it controls our DNA.

              1. Here, we’ll give you a Tab A, you then find a suitable Slot B and poof, baby. There has got to be a Schoolhouse Rock version of that science lesson. 😉

      1. Treat it like an equation where the T equals Zero. Then you can add as many letters as you want and the product remains the same.

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