Kai Pyle

I am an interdisciplinary scholar of queer Indigenous history, literature, language, and art, with a focus on Anishinaabe and Métis Two-Spirit and trans studies. My current book project, tentatively titled Folks Like Us: Anishinaabe Queer, Trans, and Two-Spirit Histories of Survivance, tells the story of how three Anishinaabe individuals whose genders were considered “transgressive” by white Americans in the nineteenth century pursued their goals and desires in spite of increasing settler colonial violence. As a Red River Métis and Sault Ste. Marie Ojibwe descendant, I am also interested in how present-day queer, trans, and Two-Spirit Indigenous people make connections with these ancestral legacies.

In addition to my interest in queer Indigenous studies, I am deeply involved in language revitalization work with the Michif and Ojibwe languages, and I regularly facilitate community-based language activities. As a member of the Black and Indigenous Feminist Futures Institute, I have also engaged in collaborative efforts acknowledging the intertwined histories, present experiences, and futures of Black and Native lives in the Americas.

Publications

“Queer Gender and Sexuality in Indigenous Language Revitalization,” in The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality, eds. Kira Hall and Rusty Barrett (2022).

“Reclaiming Traditional Gender Roles: A Two-Spirit Critique” in In Good Relation, eds. Sarah Nickel and Amanda Fehr (Winnipeg, University of Manitoba Press, April 2020).

“Naming and Claiming: Recovering Ojibwe and Plains Cree Two-Spirit Language,” Transgender Studies Quarterly 5, no. 4 (2018): 574-588.