Anthony Khangi Thanka is a Two-Spirit member of the Sicangu Lakota, Oglala Lakota, and Northern Cheyenne Nations and has grown up on the Pine Ridge Reservation, one of the most impoverished reservations in America.
Their identity as a Two-Spirit individual, someone who has a gender identity outside of the Western binary, is a nuanced one. Prior to colonization, Two-Spirit people were held in high esteem in their communities, but after centuries of violence and assimilation, they are now vulnerable within Native communities, as well.
On the Pine Ridge Reservation, rates of familial rejection are heightened, alongside crises of housing, substance use, and suicide. Thanka, along with organizers and nonprofits, has created the first-ever Two-Spirit Camp on the reservation.
“The idea for this camp was to take a traditional young men’s…