Candi Brings Plenty and Cecelia LaPointe break down boundaries. Tune in to their wide-ranging conversation on Indigenous conceptions of gender, their transformational work as organizers, and their actions towards social—and gender—justice.

About the speakers:

Candi Brings Plenty doesn’t just embrace change. She has a history of making it happen. She is the Indigenous justice organizer for the ACLU of South Dakota, and leads the efforts surrounding the ACLU’s NoKXL, NoDAPL, MMIW, and Two Spirit visibility work.

Candi identifies as Two Spirit and is a lifelong advocate for justice. As a Lakota cultural practitioner and through her spiritual activism, Candi works to bring her medicine to the Oyaté and advocates especially for the empowerment and visibility of Two Spirit warriors to reclaim their walk of life in the sacred circle.

Prior to joining the ACLU of South Dakota, Candi was the campaign adviser and executive proxy for the tribal president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the executive director of the EQUI Institute, a trans and queer health clinic, in Portland, Ore. She was also the founder of the Two Spirit Nation and led the Two Spirit encampment at Standing Rock for 11 months during the peaceful prayer movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Candi has a bachelor’s degree in Native American studies with an emphasis on tribal laws and treaties. She completed her graduate certificate in public and nonprofit management and pursued her master’s degree in public administration from Portland State University in Portland, Ore. Candi is an Oglala Lakota Sioux tribal member and a direct descendent of Crazy Horse’s Band. She grew up in the Black Hills and on the Pine Ridge Reservation, she is deeply rooted in her Lakota culture, spirituality, and language. 

Cecelia LaPointe:

Nigig-enz Baapi nindizhinikaaz. Ajijaak doodem. Kchiwiikwedong miinawaa Mashkiziibi nindonjibaa.  Naaminitigong nindaa.

My name is Little Laughing Otter. I am crane clan. I come from the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibway. I live in the Land Beneath the Trees (Manistee, MI).

Cecelia is Ojibway/Métis and enrolled in Mashkiziibi and maintain a strong community affiliation to Kchiwiikwedong. Cecelia is the Founder and Executive Director of the Native Justice Coalition and Founder and Owner of Red Circle Consulting and Waub Ajijaak Press. They identify as Two-Spirit based in their Ojibway culture from an old school and decolonial framework. Using majority culture terms, they also identify as androgynous and gender non-conforming. They don’t identify as female, male, or trans, as these are all colonial terminologies that limit a decolonized Two-Spirit identity.

Their poetry and writing is featured in 28 anthologies, booklets, chapbooks, dissertations, exhibits, journals, magazines, and online Indigenous-Native publications. Cecelia's poetry boldly weaves Anishinaabe heritage and identity, decolonization, environmental justice, First Nations/Native American/Métis identity, oppression, racial justice, sobriety, social justice, and Two-Spirit identity. They have a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan and a Master of Arts in Environmental Leadership from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.

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