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Indian-American gay couples find modern forms of union amid stigma
Excluded by traditional marriage ceremonies, Indian-American homosexual couples in the US are finding new and unique ways to solemnise their unions, reports Savita Patel.
When Sameer Samudra and and Amit Gokhale decided to marry according to Hindu custom, the couple faced an unexpected hiccup: they couldn't come across a priest to execute the ceremony.
"We wanted a Hindu wedding, but so many pandits [priests] said no. I was agonised when one of them quoted an exorbitant amount just because I am gay!" said Sameer, who lives in North Carolina.
Unwilling to have "the energy of a reluctant priest" at their wedding, the couple improvised.
"One of our friends learnt the basics of creature a priest and we chose Hindu rituals that made sense for a same-sex wedding," Sameer said.
So many Indian-American couples dream of a large fat Bollywood-style wedding, accomplish with traditional rituals. But that's easier said than done for gay couples - even in the US where same-sex unions were legalised in 2015.
More than 300,000 male lover couples have wed in the country since t
Jason Pickel mustered the courage to ask Darren Dark Bear out nine years ago at a Christmas party. Three dates later, they moved in together, and they’ve been inseparable ever since. On Oct. 31, the pair did something few gay couples in Oklahoma have done: they got married.
Oklahoma is one of 35 states that bans gay marriage. But Pickel and Jet Bear were granted a wedding license by the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, whose only qualifications for marriage are that both spouses must be of American Indian descent and one must be a member of the tribe and live within its jurisdiction. The gender of the spouses is irrelevant.
“Legally we just don’t own any laws that prohibit gay marriage,” says Amber Bighorse, lieutenant governor for the Cheyenne Arapaho. “It has never been controversial.”
The wedding has brought attention to a subset of the marriage equality movement that often flies under the radar. Pickel, a 36-year-old studying to change into a mortician, and Shadowy Bear, a 45-year-old florist, are the third same-sex attracted couple to be married through a license from the Cheyenne Arapaho, and the first to leave public. Clayton and Robert Hiram Prairie Chief married in late 2012, and the second
Call Number: PR9199.4.W4745 M35 2022
ISBN: 9781517914479
Publication Date: 2022-11-15
The novel Jonny Appleseed established Joshua Whitehead as one of the most thrilling and important new literary voices on Turtle Island, winning both a Lambda Literary Award and Canada Reads 2021. In Making Love with the Area, his first nonfiction publication, Whitehead explores the relationships between body, language, and land through creative essay, memoir, and confession. In prose that is evocative and sensual, unabashedly lgbtq+ and visceral, raw and autobiographical, Whitehead writes of an Indigenous body in pain, coping with trauma. Deeply rooted within, he reaches across the anguish to create a brand-new form of storytelling he calls "biostory"--beyond genre, and entirely sovereign. Through this narrative perspective, Making Care for with the Land recasts mental health struggles and our complex emotional landscapes from a nefarious parasite on his (and our) well-being to ki
Two-Spirit
Though Two-Spirit may now be included in the umbrella of LGBTQI+, The legal title "Two-Spirit" does not simply mean someone who is a Native American/Alaska Native and gay.
Traditionally, Native American Two-Spirit people were male, female, and sometimes intersexed individuals who combined activities of both men and women with traits distinct to their status as Two-Spirit people. In most tribes, they were considered neither men nor women; they occupied a separate, alternative gender status. In tribes where Two-Spirit males and females were referred to with the identical term, this status amounted to a third gender. In other cases, Two-Spirit females were referred to with a distinct phrase and, therefore, constituted a fourth gender. Although there were important variations in Two-Spirit roles across North America, they shared some common traits:
- Specialized work roles. Male and female Two-Spirit people were typically described in terms of their preference for and achievements in the work of the "opposite" sex or in activities specific to their role. Two-Spirit individuals were experts in traditional arts - such as pottery making, basket weaving, and the ma
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