As Vancouver approaches Pride 2021, an Indigiqueer author will help people learn more about what it means to be two-spirit, and about culture and colonization, in a talk online today presented by a Vancouver queer health organization.

Joshua Whitehead, who is two-spirit and an Oji-nêhiyaw member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1), is a University of Calgary lecturer and scholar.

His novel Jonny Appleseed (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018) was longlisted for the Giller Prize; shortlisted for the Indigenous Voices Award, the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, and the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award; won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction and the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction; and was named the book every Canadian should read in CBC’s Canada Reads 2021.

Whitehead also the author of the poetry collection full-metal indigiqueer (Talonbooks, 2017), and is the editor of the anthology Love after the End: an Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction. He is currently working on his third manuscript titled Making Love with the Land. 

In Two-Spirit of Pride, presented by Health Initiative for Men (HIM), Whitehead will be speaking at 6:30 p.m. on Zoom today (July 15) about his experiences as a two-spirit individual, overcoming challenges, claiming his identity, and the importance of storytelling and healing.  

Attendance is free or by donation and more information is available at the HIM website.

HIM also has several other upcoming talks for the 2021 Pride season, including:

• Beyond the Binary (July 22), a panel discussion about gender and kink;
• Spill the Tea (July 29), featuring drag queens talking about safer substance use and harm reduction;
• What Colour is Queer? (August 5), with Asian queer community leaders discussing their experiences in Vancouver;
• Generations of Pride (August 12), a panel discussion about age diversity.

For full details, visit the HIM website.