Gay Aboriginal Writer

Some reflections from a gay indigenous guest writer.

Some excerpts from Landa Lakes' blogs. Landa is a gay Native American writer, activist and transgender performer.

"I believe we should always give back to our respective communities in some way. I have endeavored to live my life like this since I was a small child.

It all began with the mask dance my grandfather had my sister and I perform everywhere. It was complex for children ages 4 and 5. I had so much fun, but I really didn't understand what the dance conveyed till years later when I saw it performed by another couple of kids. It was then that I realized that it had a powerful message hidden as a cute dance...

I have actually been rather introspective, lately. I remember the first time that I attended my first ACT UP rally. It was incredibly small and we dressed in black with white face paint and died on the steps of City Hall in Oklahoma City.

The paper exaggerated our numbers when it came out much to our delight, but in those days we were also beaten down by the same column for leading lascivious lives that begat a righteous plague.

In the 80's, my friends just seem to disappear and for the most part we knew what was happening but somehow never talked about it. When we used to shout silence equals death, I used to feel guilt because I never focused on MY friends that I lost but rather on the tragedy of other people's loss.

When a friend of mine died recently, I felt that hardness creep back up and at this moment he is almost erased in my mind. And I feel the guilt and maybe silencing and ignoring is festering a deeper, larger wound that has yet to bleed."

Check out my article Indigenous Homosexuality.