Tribal Equity Toolkit

Native American Program of Legal Aid Services of Oregon, the Indigenous Ways of Knowing Program at Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling and the Western States Center, the Pride Foundation and Basic Rights Oregon collaborate on the nation's first guide for Two Spirit and LGBT equity in Indian Country.

In 2009, IWOK began working on Two Spirit and LGBT Equality issues in Indian Country through a generous grant from the Western States Center's Gender Justice Program. During this early partnership IWOK redesigned activities from the Center's Uniting COmmunitis Toolkit and re-framed many of the curriculum tools to show the unique worldview of Tribes and Tribal People. IWOK also re-articulated the issue within the essential frames of sovereighity, self-determination and culture and rooted their work for equality as a core belief.

The work of decolonization can't thoroughly happen without also addressing issues of Two Spirit & LGBT Justice. Colonization taught Tribal communities a great deal about homophobia and transphobia, and as Native communities work to consciously reclaim and return to their traditions this work must also re-examine how the effects of colonization remain enshrined in Tribal Policy, Law and structure. For Tribal Nations, LGBT Equality and Decolonization are inextricably linked, one cannot be truly be achieved without the other.

The tribal equity toolkit considers Two Spirit equity an issue of tribal sovereignity. A lot of emphasis is placed on defining and protecting all families, including the freedom to marry, adoption, and child welfare among others

Tribal Equity Toolkit (First Edition, PDF)

See article about the Toolkit in Indian Country Today: Two Spirit/LGBT Rights Toolkit for Tribal Governments Introduced

The Tribal Equity Toolkit version 2.0 is to be released in November 2013 at a Two-Spirit Justice Summit in Portland, OR.