Ma-Nee Chacaby (born July 22, 1950) is an Ojibwe-Cree lesbian writer, elder, spiritual educator, and activist from Canada.[1] She is most noted for her memoir, A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder.
Born and raised in the remote Northern Ontario indigenous community of Ombabika,[2][3] Chacaby escaped the Indian residential school system only because she was away hunting and trapping with her stepfather when government agents arrived in the community during the Sixties Scoop.[2] She would later write in her autobiography, "many times people have told me that I was lucky that I was not forced to go to residential schools, " but that she found it often "hard to feel lucky" due to the ongoing physical and sexual abuse she faced.[4]
Chacaby suffered ongoing physical and sexual abuse from several adults, including close family members. She started drinking alcohol at the age of ten at a party hosted by her parents. Not long after, she also began abusing car exhaust and gasoline fumes.[3] She continued to turn to alcohol to escape the trauma of the violence she experienced.
Chacaby was primarily raised by her grandmother, who taught her about traditional Ojibwe culture. Her mother died when Chacaby was in her teens, and she was forced into an arranged marriage shortly after. At twenty, she escaped a physically-abusive marriage by moving to Thunder Bay, Ontario with her children.[4] She also lived in Winnipeg and Manitoba, and later in Boston.
While living in Thunder Bay, she sparked a local controversy when she openly identified herself as a lesbian in a television news story for Thunder Bay Television in 1988.[2] Through involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous, Chacaby eventually reached sobriety, and began dedicating her time to work as a counselor for those struggling with alcohol and drug addiction, homelessness, and domestic violence. As she worked to assist at-risk youth and abused women, she parented her children, foster children, and later adopted children.[3][4]
She became a local activist on 2SLGBTQ+ and indigenous issues, and later began to create and exhibit work as a painter,[5] a practice she pursed as part of her healing, before writing and publishing A Two-Spirit Journey. She is fluent in both Cree and Ojibwe and recorded Alcoholic Anonymous' The Big Book[6] in Objiwe so the text could reach more people in need of recovery.[7]
A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder was co-authored by Mary Louisa Plummer and published by the University of Manitoba Press in 2016.[2] It is the 18th title in the Native History Series published by the press. Methodologically, it combines social science and indigenous oral history.[8] The authors conducted over one hundred hours of interviews as part of their writing process, and the book deals with themes of child abuse, alcohol abuse, sexuality, and post-traumatic stress disorder.[9]
Critical acclaim
The biography was awarded the U.S. Oral History Association's 2017 Book Award,[10] as well as the Ontario Historical Society's 2018 Alison Prentice Award for Best Book on Women's History in Ontario.[11] In addition, A Two-Spirit Journey was a shortlisted Lambda Literary Award finalist for Lesbian Memoir/Biography at the 29th Lambda Literary Awards in 2017,[12] and was shortlisted for the Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher at the 2017 Manitoba Book Awards.[13]
In 2019, A Two-Spirit Journey was published in French as Un Parcours Bispirituel by Les éditions du remue-ménage.[14] That same year, Chacaby served as one of the grand marshals of the Fierté Montréal parade.[5]
In 2025, A Two-Spirit Journey was named as a finalist for Canada Reads, where it was advocated by actress and podcaster Shayla Stonechild.[15] It was the winner of the competition.[16]
↑Chacaby, Ma-Nee (2016). A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder pdf. University of Manitoba Press. p.110. ISBN0887558127.
↑Leung-Pittman, Emily. "A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder by Ma-Nee Chacaby with Mary Louisa Plummer." The Goose, vol. 16, no. 2, article 26, 2018, https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol16/iss2/26.
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