As governments tighten restrictions on gender-affirming care, one First Nation in Alberta is taking a very different approach. Saddle Lake Cree Nation has announced plans to establish a safe haven for transgender and Two-Spirit people seeking gender-affirming medical care, challenging Alberta’s restrictions by invoking health-care rights it says are protected under Treaty 6.

The announcement came September 9, on the 150th anniversary of Treaty 6, which was signed in 1876 between the Crown and several First Nations. Saddle Lake leaders are invoking the treaty’s “medicine chest clause,” which Indigenous communities have long understood as a commitment to comprehensive health care. The Nation says that provision places health care within its jurisdiction on reserve lands, Global News reports.

“I have been really thinking about this in terms of the context of this campaign for tribes and its meaning for tribal communities, in the long history of our commitment and work to the Two-Spirit community,” said Edmo, who is Shoshone-Bannock, Nez Perce and Yakama. “And even though this is not the ballot fight we wanted to have, it’s the one we need to show up for, as tribal people, as tribal nations.”

A Gumbaynggirr elder was never allowed to speak her native tongue, but now she learns alongside her great-granddaughter at an Indigenous preschool.

We are many Tribes! We speak 574 different languages in the U.S alone. Each Tribe has their own songs and dances. We, are many Tribes and have lived on these lands for millennia!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/51921563

An Alberta First Nation says it aims to defy Premier Danielle Smith’s government by establishing a safe haven for gender-affirming medical care — contrary to provincial law.

The Saddle Lake Cree Nation, located northeast of Edmonton near St. Paul, says health care is a right under Treaty 6 and falls under its inherent jurisdiction.

The First Nation has invoked the “medicine chest clause” provision from the treaty signed in 1876, which Indigenous Peoples interpret as a promise to provide comprehensive health care.

Greenland's government said Friday it would establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to shed light on a campaign of forced contraception carried out by Danish authorities from the 1960s to 1990, after experts failed to agree on whether the practice constituted genocide. The brutal campaign saw thousands of Indignous women and girls receive intrauterine devices or contraceptive injections without their consent.