Interview with T Sharp Dopler

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: I'm here with Sharp? Is that what they call you?

SHARP: That's what I choose to call myself.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: I --I just want to note that I'm here with Sharp.

SHARP: It's stopped blinking, it's just solid red. Is it supposed to do that?

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: I think so, yeah the numbers are going.

SHARP: Alright!

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Actually when we did our workshop, I forgot to turn it on.

SHARP: Naaa, nice!

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: But, no, I've done interviews before. I just want to note that this project is a co-project between the Two Spirited Group of Manitoba and I just want to note that you're smoking... what is that? An e-cigarette?

SHARP: It's my medication. It's not nicotine.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: No? Okay. And -- just because they'll hear it and kind of wonder what it is. I want to get a visual too. I want to note that you're all in gray: gray hair, gray shirt, gray pants -- and it looks great, you look great!

SHARP: Why thank you, thank you very much. [Laughs]. I'll try not to pull on that again.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: And what does your top say?

SHARP: It says "lick a lot of puss."

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: [Laughs].

SHARP: [Laughs] It was a gift from a very dear friend, who is now in the Spirit World. She was a powerful Two Spirit woman who worked in the field of HIV/AIDS for... all of her life and she died on World Aids Day in 2010.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Hmm. Yeah, so this project is um, being led by [the] Two Spirited Group of Manitoba, and in concert, so to speak, the Oral History Department of the University of Winnipeg, and ultimately, this interview, which is going to be owned by the Two Spirited Group of Manitoba, but it's going to be held in stewardship at the University of Winnipeg Archives and it's specifically important that I say stewardship because this interview, it will still belong to 00:02:00the Two Spirit Group of Manitoba, but, it's going to be at -- held at the University of Winnipeg Archives. And they may put portions of it online.

SHARP: Okay.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: They may transcribe and it might be used for academic purposes. So our, a number of reasons, research, maybe, a family member or something will see your name somewhere and wonder, "who is this person?"

SHARP: Maybe!

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: [Laughs] So you signed the consent form, I've kind of given you a brief explanation of the project and I have questions here which I know I'm going to ask you. You just answer them however you like. But I do know that when we spoke earlier, you had mentioned something about a military purge and I think when we get to question five, "can you talk me about your journey as a Two 00:03:00Spirit person," I think that would be a good place to talk about the military purge.

SHARP: Okay!

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: So, Sharp, is this your first gathering?

SHARP: It is my first gathering, I have been for a very long time interested in attending the international Gatherings more particularly when they were held in Canada, but life's always gotten in the way. I've managed to land at this Gathering, thanks mostly to Albert, but also to Gail Prudent, who kinda said, "You need to come, you need to come, you need to come," so I applied for a scholarship and I got one and then found myself as part of the Founding Group for Two Spirits in Motion Foundation. And then, now I'm a member of the Board.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: So, the Two Spirits in Motion, is that the Group that's based out of Edmonton?

SHARP: So, we just formed just before the Gathering so it's intended to be a 00:04:00National Two Spirit Group and we're still sussing out exactly what we're going to do. But it's a -- I know most of it is about, bringing, more visibility to Two Spirit people and Two Spirit issues. It's about um--It's about [Chippeway adjusts audio equipment] doing that education, it's about us being able to take back our place.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: [Interview pauses for audio adjustment] I have to move the audio recorder, just to capture your voice a little better.

SHARP: Oh, that's alright, people don't usually have trouble catching my voice. I'll try and project a little bit more. My spirit name is Thunder Bear and one of the reasons I'm called Thunder Bear is because of my--because of the power of my voice.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: You're also, in a way, one of the Elders -- one of the 00:05:00teachers here. This morning you did a pipe ceremony.

SHARP: I did. I'm a helper, "oskapewis," that's how I see myself, in my own community back in Ottawa. There's some who will refer to me as a Knowledge Keeper or as an Elder. It's not a term I'm particularly comfortable with. I like to help. It's what I've always done. Even before I learned anything about my own culture, I've always been a helper. I don't tend to sit still very long. I'm always moving, so it's kinda odd to find myself in that position. I remember a few years ago they had World Pride in Toronto and my wife and I were lucky enough to go and we were walking down Church Street and I saw a group of young people in Pastel super hero outfits with the little masks and everything. I 00:06:00said, "HEY! I gotta get a picture with these superheroes," and I have my arms around these kids and I say, "I've never had my picture taken with superheroes," and one of the kids leaned over and said, "actually, you're the superhero because you're the reason we're here." I almost lost it because that was awesome! That was awesome, so yeah, you know I just been around a long time. I came out in '83, so that's a long time ago.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Yeah. And you don't look like you're a person who came out in '83.

SHARP: [Laughs] Thank you. Thank you.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: I mean you, I feel as if you're just a little bit older than me and in '83 I was young. I was very young. Oh my dad, [unclear] it doesn't mean you came out in middle age or in your twenties, I guess it doesn't really matter. So you've heard about the Gatherings before?

SHARP: I had. I had seen stuff online and I'd heard about it because you know 00:07:00some of the older people who are here, like Albert, I've known Albert for many years through involvement with some other stuff. Who else did I know here? Oh, bunch of different people and so I'd heard about the Gatherings and interestingly enough, other Two Spirit people who had attended Gatherings in other places connected me with other Two Spirit people, so for instance, I'm the only person on the Powwow trail that I go. I'm the only "female"-ish bodied person who dances men's traditional. I've never met another assigned female at birth person who danced men's traditional. So, a friend of mine went to one of the Two Spirit Gatherings in the States and hooked me up with another female bodied person who dances men's traditional, who they had met. So, I have this 00:08:00Facebook friend who is like me and that's cool because you know, that gives you some comfort when you face some of that push back from the community.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Will you be dancing tomorrow?

SHARP: Oh hell yeah!

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: [Laughs] I look forward to that. Just to know, we're having a Two Spirited Powwow tomorrow, as kind of our last ceremony for the Two Spirited Gathering -- 2018 Gathering. So, I just want to go and, I noticed on your personal information form, you're from Ontario.

SHARP: Well, I live in Ottawa, Ontario. I'm originally from Newfoundland.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Okay.

SHARP: My heritage is Sack-Fox and Cherokee. My Dad is an American who was posted there with the military in Newfoundland and met my mother and the rest is history. So I grew up always knowing I was Indigenous, but not knowing much 00:09:00else. I knew my Nation. When I started exploring that culture, when I had that opportunity when I moved to Ottawa, I was able to speak to one of the Elders in our family who knew our Clan, the Bear Clan, but that's all I knew. I was lucky enough with the agency I was working with in Ottawa, when I moved there -- Women's Addiction Agency --they connected me with a number of Indigenous agencies and the Indigenous agencies connected me with the Indigenous Veterans group and this wealth of... knowledge and information and changed my life. Completely.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: When did that happen?

SHARP: I moved to Ottawa in 92--it was about a -- it was about six months after 00:10:00that that I went off the rails and some friends I that I had made did an intervention and I ended up at the Addiction Centre and then they connected me in '93-'94 with these other agencies. So, I've been following that road ever since. And you know it was for me, it was part of a journey trying to seek spirituality my whole life, because I was raised Catholic. I was so Catholic I was almost a nun, and, you know, dodged a bullet. [laughs].

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: That's true! Is there any hint of that Catholicism so embedded in you that it -- there's a little hint of maybe... not faith... but of what they engrained in you?

SHARP: Um, yes. I mean...

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: How...?

SHARP: I like to describe myself as a recovering Catholic, because it's almost like an addiction; it is so engrained. More of it is the guilt, feeling guilty about things -- I've pretty much let go of the concept of Sin, which is good. I've let go a lot of it and as time has gone by and I've had the opportunity to sit with other Two Spirit knowledge keepers and some of the really radical Elders that I've sat with., I've been able to deconstruct more and more, because there was a time where I drank that rigidity Kool-Aid, so when I listen to traditional people who told me, "Well if you're going to be a good Indigenous person, you're a woman, so you need to dance jingle, fancy shawl, or traditional women's." I tried dancing traditional and it was a shit show. It took a lightning strike for me to change my dance style -- a literal lightning strike.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: You were hit by lightning?

SHARP: I was hit by lightning about twelve years ago.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: We're you? Ohhh.

SHARP: About twelve years ago, and eleven years ago I started dancing men's traditional, because I was afraid. So, there are moments when some of that Catholicism -- I'm able to deconstruct it easier, because I thought I was going to be a nun -- my degree is in religious studies. So, I understand how religion works, I understand the psychology behind it. So... often if it crops up, I can figure it out. The other thing that's interesting is even though I don't practice that, if for whatever reason I have to go to a Catholic mass, all that stuff is there. It's just there -- I remember it.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: One of the reasons I ask that question is because, my mother as well she follows the tradition, but there's always a little bit of a hint of 00:13:00I can tell, she still kinda holds the rosary with a lot of... respect and, and power, like if somebody in our family's sick, she'll hang the rosary, even though she still follows the traditions though. I ask why and she says it's because it's so ingrained in us since a kid, that it's hard to get out of that mind set.

SHARP: So, for me, part of the other thing that is different is having done a degree in religious studies and having looked and paid attention to stuff. I'm able to disconnect the dogma, from the... pure practice. So, I can see the similarities; I can see the beauty of it, because most of Catholic practice was taken from Pagan land based traditions. They took it and they tweaked it. So... 00:14:00at the source of it, it's the same. The problem is that there's all this other window dressing is what messes people up and is what messed up us as Indigenous people. So, I'm able to find that, but I have friends who are knowledge keepers who are like, "I don't want to hear anything about religion, don't bring religion into this, this is not about religion." Um, okay... but you just finished saying that all paths are a good path, if it helps bring you closer to spirit. So, you're contradicting yourself, right? In that way, in that contradiction, in that judgement, that's very Catholic. So, it's catching ourselves, right? Yeah. Yeah...

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: So, I just want to say that you've been in Ottawa, Ontario, for... since the '90s? Early '90s?

SHARP: 1992. November, 1992.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: It's like a lifetime.

SHARP: For some people.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: That's pretty much my adult life. Do you ever go back to Newfoundland?

SHARP: I do from time to time.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Yeah?

SHARP: None one of my family of origin are there anymore. My dad lives in Ottawa. He just relocated from the States. My three siblings, two of them are in Ontario and one of them is in Nova Scotia. I have members of my Mother's extended family [that] are still in Newfoundland. I love going home, but home really is in Ottawa. I mean, I live with my wife, and we've been together for 23 years. We own our home, we live out in the country, on the rural edge of the city. I just built my own lodge in my back yard. That's where those elders came to me, was being there. So, I can't imagine being anywhere else.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Mhmm.

SHARP: But Newfoundland will always be home, 'cause that's the way it is for Newfoundlanders.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: [Laughs] So, you just mentioned -- well not just mentioned -- your family. Are there any other members of your family that would fall under 00:16:00the umbrella of Two Spirit? And I don't just mean indigenous, but ... the LGBTQ...

SHARP: LMNOP?

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Yeah.

SHARP: Yeah. I do know that there are members of... my father's extended family. I have cousins who fall under that umbrella. I only know that because, I remember my mother calling me after they had moved to the States, after you know all of us were in school, and my mother wanted to live somewhere warm instead of Newfoundland. I was talking to my mom one night and she says, "Oh, we're planning this family reunion and your aunty is all beside herself because your cousin," I can't even remember his name, "is going to be there and he wants to bring his husband." She was apparently ranting about another aunty, about that can't happen, it's an abomination to the lord, "blah, blah, blah," and my 00:17:00mother's saying, she says, "Yeah, and she didn't have the nerve to say that to me because I'd have shown her an abomination." I'm going, "Who're you?" Because when I came out to my family initially, my mother struggled with it. She never completely rejected me, but she struggled with it, right? So for her to go from that struggle to... "I'll show her an abomination," was kind of a miraculous thing for me to hear.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: How long was that struggle? Over what time frame?

SHARP: Oh... she began trying to wrestle with it... almost immediately. We had some ups and downs. It took a couple of years before, you know, we had a confrontation. If I had a partner with me and we were with -- at visiting my mother's home and I just put my hand on my partners knee or put my arm around her shoulder, my mother would twitch and I had a confrontation with her and I [said], "What are you doing?" and she says, "Do you have to flaunt it?" and I 00:18:00said, "Are you kidding me? Everywhere I go I have to monitor myself so I don't put myself in danger. I'm not going to do it in my family." And she said "Well, I'm just not used to it." And I said, "If you don't see it, how are you going to get used to it?" I said, "I'm not going to monitor myself and my family, so you have a choice. You figure this out, I can't help you do it. And if you can't figure it out, you're making the choice that I'm no longer part of this family," and I walked out of the room and she figured it out. So a few years later, she actually came to the gay bar with me.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Oh wow. [Laughs]

SHARP: Just for a visit. She was little bit freaked out. My dad had come to the gay bar before that, but he took it way better than my mother did. Much to my surprise, I thought he was going to reject me completely, and he didn't. And we started, for the first time in my life being friends.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Why do you think your father reacted differently from your mother? So unexpectedly? Any thoughts on that?

SHARP: Uhh... Oh my God my first girlfriend used to say it was because it was finally the son he wanted because he had all girls. [Laughs] I don't know. I don't know, I mean my mother used to always say that he and I were so alike. Or maybe it was because I told him before I told her.There are so many things that I could ask and... You know, or that I could wonder about and all I can figure is that I trusted him and that meant something to him. So... yeah.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: How do you identify yourself now? Today.

SHARP: Now? Um, I identify as an, "Ogokwe Inini," which is an Ojibway term that literally translated means Wise Woman Man. But for me it means more than that. It means I stand around the genders. (Pauses) I'm not definable. Sometimes I'll 00:20:00use the term Two Spirit. Only because... it's simpler. Sometimes. Because there's so much misunderstanding about what Two Spirit means and I just try to keep encouraging people to stop making it so rigid, you know? Stop making it so rigid. I have a Trans person who I have adopted as my child, who was... Somebody came to an agency in Ottawa and was talking about what it meant to be Two Spirit. And this person said to be Two Spirit means you have the spirit of a man and a spirit of a woman and my child stood up and said no I have the spirit of a woman and I'm attracted to women. And this person shut her down and said then you're not two spirit. That doesn't sit right with me. You know, but I'm not 00:21:00going to go and challenge that person. I'm going to talk about the difficulty that that causes, but I'm not going to do it in a way that is gossipy and laterally violent, because you don't know who I'm talking about and that's the way I was taught. You know, we can share stories from one another to share from without turning it into that toxic lateral violence.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: You identified, and I'm going to use the English version of how you identify yourself. You said, "wise woman man?"

SHARP: Yeah.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: I like to listen. So I hear what people talk about, cause sometimes I'll just sit quietly and listen and I don't know where it was now -- you said you first identify yourself as a lesbian and yet now you identify yourself as a Wise Woman Man. How did that change?

SHARP: So I came out as a lesbian kind of in the context of... doing that exploration, that I had a religious vocation, because frankly, sex with a man wasn't fun. I kept kinda wondering when? When does the good time start. [laughs] So when it wasn't happening, I figured, you know, I was very involved in a church community and so I thought, "Oh! This must be I have a vocation to the religious life." So I started that process, they call it discernment and I had a really awesome spiritual director. He was a Catholic priest who was the chaplain at Memorial University where I was doing my undergrad and he was truly revolutionary. So I walked into his office one day for my regular session and he says, "Today we're going to talk about sexuality." And I said "Why? I'm giving it up." He says, "Well, while it's true that celibacy is a form of sexuality or 00:23:00form of sexual expression, it's rare to be somebody's natural form, so if you're going to choose for that to be your sexual expression, you need to understand your sexuality before you can shut it down." I said, "Oh. Okay. Sex sucks, literally and figuratively. It isn't fun." He looked at me and he says, "You do know that there's one more than one form of sexuality?" And I lost my -- I nod at him I said, "You can't say that you're a catholic priest." Anyway long story short: he said the words that changed my life. He said, "It's not for me to decide if you're gay or not, but you need to know this, that if you are, God made that too and its okay." At that point I stormed out of my office, ran into my best friend who tried to come out to me a week before and I wasn't listening. He took me to the gay bar on the weekend. Pretty much the next day I kicked the door off the closet and I never looked back. But something... I identify myself 00:24:00as a lesbian, never sat quite right with me, because for me, who I was and how I moved in the world was so much more than who I slept with. So, I ended up in Ottawa and at some point, I couldn't tell you the year -- at some point, well, after 1990, I heard that term Two Spirit and I started to do some research on it and -- also, I started to learn about some of those traditional teachings about Two Spirit people and I kinda went, "Oh my God," because the way it was explained to me it was more than sexuality, more than gender, it was about your role, it was about so many different things and I've gotten to a point in my life, I'm 55 years old, I've been married to my wife for 23 years... it makes no 00:25:00sense to me anymore to identify myself anymore by who I love, because I love more than that and I don't know, given that my gender is fluid -- and I know that sexuality is fluid. I mean technically, according to my lived experience, technically, I'm bisexual. I prefer girls way more than I like boys. I mean it's not important to me anymore that I identify myself by my sexuality. But I understand why it's important. I understand why I had to go through that process. I understand why it's important like for that youth that we've been talking to, to have all that terminology, to be able to claim their identity, because I was young once. It was a long time ago. I understand why that's important. But, I also see how it causes harm and division. Even within the 00:26:00queer community, right? When I moved to Ottawa, I was horrified, because the lesbians had their place they went and the gay men had their place that they went and there was no sign of any trans people, and the bisexuals were suspicious according to everybody and it horrified me because back in Newfoundland we had one friggen' bar, we all played together and there was nothing better than getting over a really bad breakup than hanging out with drag queens and gay guys. So I was horrified. So as I've aged, I've come to understand -- I think I said it one of the circles yesterday -- I've come to understand that identity is important to being able to claim our identity, it's important, but we need to stop separating ourselves, you know in those ways that we do, because it's making us weak. We need to be able to sit together and be able to see and celebrate the difference and be able to claim that identity, but not make it that a requirement that we separate from others. Because we need one 00:27:00another. I'll get off my soapbox. [laughs]

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Yeah, the whole point of this is soap box. So can you tell me about your community? What's life like for you now in Ottawa?

SHARP: I have a very weird definition of community. I'm very involved with the HIV community, both locally, regionally, and nationally, that sort of thing, because I've done that work for a long time working in the HIV community. I'm involved in the Indigenous community in Ottawa, but very much on the periphery because there's not very much support for Two Spirit people in Ottawa, even though the agencies are trying to hop on the band wagon. Those same agencies have caused a lot of harm for Two Spirit people in Ottawa and they're still doing it half-assed. So, we don't have a Two Spirit elder in Ottawa. She passed away a couple years ago [pauses] and a couple of the agencies won't -- one of 00:28:00them I can't go in the door. One of them I can go in the door, but I'm not allowed to share any teachings.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Hmm. How Come?

SHARP: Don't know. I go in the door and drum and sing, they'll let me do that, but they'll bring somebody from a different community to talk about Two Spirit teachings. Mm. So, when I know that I can be calm, I'll go and I know who to ask that question, but I don't know that I can be calm at the moment because sometimes anger is a powerful thing and I don't want to burn the bridge even more. So apart from that, you know my elders always said to me, "If you feel uncomfortable in a circle, if you've been made to feel unwelcome, then that's a powerful teaching because it tells you that maybe that circle is not for you and if you can figure out a way to figure out a way to be comfortable with that -- which is difficult for us, because especially if you haven't grown up in your 00:29:00culture, that desire drives you, like a hunger to want to belong, to want to learn, to want to have those teachings, but it's difficult to get that place, but when you get to that place where you can kind of go, "You know what, I'm okay with not belonging in that circle," your own circle will make itself apparent to you. And that's what happened. For me it happened when I was given that pipe that I did ceremony with this morning. I was given that pipe in 2011. Slowly, my community came forward and so we call ourselves the great Gathering of Freaks and Weirdos. Quite a number of us are Two Spirit. The elders are allies, and we have created spaces for barrier free ceremony. In all those ways, 00:30:00we come from a harm reduction perspective. There's no skirt shaming, there's no drug shaming, there's no gender shaming. There's no shaming, and it's powerful.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Its funny, when a lot of times when... I have discussions like this with people, specifically in the Two Spirited community, the issue of skirts and women having to wear skirts at ceremony always comes up. I find that interesting, but I just want to ask very quickly, how come you worked in the HIV community, so to speak, or what brought you there?

SHARP: I've been involved in HIV since the bad old days. I was a young baby dyke in the queer community when -- I even remember when it was GRID: Gay Related Immune Deficiency, which was before they discovered the virus and gave it a name 00:31:00and I remember taking care of far too many of the guys and going to far too many funerals. Even before I left Newfoundland. So I've always been involved and affected and impacted by HIV. In about 2006, I got a job with the Ontario Aboriginal HIV/AIDS Strategy and I worked there for ten years and it changed my life. The founding executive director of OAHUS was Laverne Jeannette and she was a Two Spirited woman and she was a power house. I learned so much from her. She's the reason that I carry that pipe. She's the reason that I'm able to claim my identity, she's a big part of that reason and you know what's interesting to 00:32:00me is how much I've been fed by the work that I do in the HIV community because all of those people are beautiful APHAs -- Aboriginal People living with HIV and AIDs. They've given me more than I could ever give back. When I lost my job in early 2016, that community rallied around me. I got a scholarship to go to the next HIV conference, which I shouldn't have been at, because I wasn't working in HIV anymore. I'm involved in research on positive Indigenous women. I'm still supporting that, you know? I ain't making a whole lot of big bucks, but I'm doing work that I love and I want to keep doing it because they've taught me so much about stigma. They've taught me so much about the impact of that shame that so many of us carry, you know? Somebody talked about the trauma and when you 00:33:00combine that HIV trauma with drug, trauma and stigma, and Indigenous trauma and stigma, and poverty trauma and stigma, I don't even know how some of the people that I've served have survived and yet they can manage to do it, so many of them with grace and compassion. So, you know, I'll keep doing work with that community so long as they'll let me. Yeah.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: So, the next question -- and this is where I specifically want to ask you about the military purge -- tell me about your Two Spirit journey as a person, however, let's maybe if you could talk to me about the military purge and what is that?

SHARP: So, the Canadian government, I already told you a bit about my journey as a Two Spirit person, about going form lesbian to whatever the hell I am now. [laughs] The Canadian government had an official policy that required the 00:34:00purging or pushing out of, not only the military but also the federal public servants, who were gay, lesbian, or bisexual. They pursued a very vigorous campaign of seeking out and identifying and harassing and using those people to try and identify other queers in order to remove them. Their justification, their rationalization for it was because we were queer -- and I'm using that term because it's simpler -- because we were queer, we were a huge security threat because somebody might blackmail us. Now the record actually shows that not a single LGBTQ person who served in the military or the public service, ever betrayed their oath to Canada. Ever. So, recently, in the fall of 2017, the 00:35:00Canadian government issued an apology for that purge. In the House of Commons, which was remarkable, I entered the military about the same time as I came out in 1983. I was always honest about who and what I was. I didn't proclaim it -- tada! -- Although I was involved with a lobby group in Newfoundland, so that might have proclaimed it, but nobody asked me a question. So, I served with the Canadian Cadet Movement with Cadet Instructors, so I was instructing young people aged 12 to 18. I experienced some difficulties along the way -- remarkably enough, more often from other queer serving members than my senior 00:36:00officers, you know, because people were so afraid and they wanted to stay closeted. I mean it was like this open secret for so many of them and so I was going merrily along my way and things were slowly changing and then in 1995... I was a senior officer at an establishment and had a disgruntled employee and his girlfriend make allegations against me of abuse of authority. He got his girlfriend, who had been a good friend of mine for quite a while, to level false charges of sexual assault against me. My commanding officer knew that they were false. He did an investigation, he found in my favor and I thought it was over. These people went to the next level in the chain of command. A senior commander, 00:37:00that level, decided ah-hah! Luckily, when he was asked about it by a junior officer, who he didn't know was a closeted gay man, he responded to the question, "Why are you doing this, you know this is groundless?" He initiated a military police investigation against me that was very traumatizing. I received a report of short comings on my personnel record to which that point had been spectacular. His response was, "Because she's a goddamn dyke and I want her out." Now this was just after the Canadian forces had officially changed their policy that there would be no career barriers or any other things from people who were lesbian or gay. So, this young officer came to me and said I had to 00:38:00fight this thing and told me that there had been other officers who had been there and witnessed this statement. He was the only one who was willing to write me a letter, none of the others would return my phone call or acknowledge me in any way. It took me about two years to clear my name and have that report of short comings taken off my record. It made me very, very ill with the stress, because the military had been a huge part of my identity. It was a part of my identity that I had confidence in. It was a part of my identity that I had pride in and it was being taken away from me.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: In such a violent way.

SHARP: Horribly violent way.

SHARP: And... So I resigned once I cleared my name. I resigned, I couldn't go 00:39:00back there. You know if it wasn't for that stuff, I'd still be serving. I'd still be serving. So, I got very, very sick as a result of all this and I had to put it out of my mind. Because it was making me so sick, I went to my Elder's Elder. He corralled me one day and he asked me, "What's going on?" And I told him. Like it all just kinda came spewing out of me and he said "Here's what I need you to do..." And I was still so new to ceremony at that point because that was in 1997-98. It was '97 because it was before my mother died. So he described this ceremony that I had to do and I did the ceremony and I immediately started to get better physically, mentally, and emotionally and then I put all that stuff away. Like, I haven't thought about it. Then they did the apology this fall and so all of those memories are like right here. [Gestures] But I'm lucky, 00:40:00because of culture, because of ceremony, I'm better equipped to deal with that than I was then. It's tripping me up, it's throwing me off my balance, but it's not making me sick the way it did before. So, we'll wait and see if the government comes through on their promises of support and other things.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: And was there compensation for people? Did you get any of that?

SHARP: I don't know yet. You have to go through the paper work and blah, blah, blah, blah so we'll see -- we'll see what happens.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Given the fact that they changed the policy just before.

SHARP: Well that makes it even worse, right? The fact that they changed the policy and this guy still did his thing. I don't know --the process doesn't start until October, because it's going to take them that long for them to get 00:41:00their shit together, so... so that's just another stressor on top of everything else.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Did you go to the apology?

SHARP: I was physically present in the House of Commons, I was sitting right behind Mr. Trudeau. Yeah.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: I want to thank you for sharing that story. I'm going to skip a couple questions here.

SHARP: Yep.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: You have what looks like -- no, no, the tattoo on your arm.

SHARP: This one?

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Yeah. It looks like a yin-yang kind of, but the colors aren't the same as the Asian white and black. This is red and turquoise.

SHARP: So --

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: And a bear paw? And what's the other one? Oh another bear paw.

SHARP: Yep they're both bear paws. So I'm a martial artist. I have a third dan black belt in taekwondo and in Korea -- cause taekwondo is a Korean martial art. 00:42:00This symbol is in red and blue and they call it, "unmyeong." As I learn more about what it meant to be two spirit and I listen to those very gendered teachings that we get that women are water carriers and men are fire keepers and I've always been both. So I thought -- and one of the things that martial arts has done for me is that it's given me a physical expression of warrior teachings that I've learned from my elders and as a veteran. I wanted something on my body that could never be taken away. So I drew a mockup of this and I went to my tattoo artist and I said "This is what I want." And "I want those bear paws in there because that's so much a part of my medicine -- that bear energy." And 00:43:00that's what she did. So the blue actually has waves in it and that's the water. The way that she did it, the water sloshes outside the lines which is great and even steps into the fire which is great because that's part of who I am as a Two Spirit person. The flames in that fire, they step a little bit into the water and they very much step outside the lines, but they're not out of control, they're just enough outside the lines that it's a reminder about not being rigid. So my role in who I am as a Two Spirit person is about keeping that in balance and understanding that for me, when I look out at the world, everybody has that balance. Everybody has that balance. It's just not everybody is aware of it. So yeah. That's my medicine.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: I really like your name Sharp. Is that what your parents 00:44:00named you?

SHARP: Yes. Yes is the short answer. So Sharp is actually my middle name. I have a first name that I no longer use. So, it was my paternal grandfather's only given name and he was full blood mix of Cherokee and Sackfox and it was his only given name. I don't know why they called him sharp. So, when I turned fifty I learned from my father that was supposed to be my first name. The interesting thing is all my life, I love that name, but I was afraid that people would think it was weird, because I grew up in Newfoundland and I had a weird last name and my dad was an Indian and a whole bunch of other stuff that caused me to be very much bullied when I was a child. So when I turned fifty, my dad told me this 00:45:00story that it was actually supposed to be my first name and my mother wouldn't go for it. My wife started a habit -- you know if you've been in a relationship with somebody for a while, you can tune out the sound of their voice, even when they're calling your name. So she had started for about a year before I turned fifty she would say "Sharp!" and the more I heard it, the more I liked it. So when I turned fifty and that combination of that happened I started telling my close inner circle "Could you call me Sharp?" and the more I heard it, the more I liked it and then I just decided, this is my name, this is who I am. I've had a little push back from some people and I still have to keep that other name wish I despise as part of my legal name for now because my dad's an American and his bank account is in the states and when his time comes and I'll have to deal 00:46:00with it and I don't want to have to deal with it with the name change.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Yeah. So you know what, I'm just going to ask one more question, a simple question, not on the -- well it's on the list, I'm going ask the one that says to ask [indiscernible] Where is your -- where do you feel most safe?

SHARP: I feel most safe in ceremony. I feel most safe with a drum in my hand, or an eagle feather in my hand, or my regalia on. I feel most safe in places like this, where I can be fully who I am, where I can do things like I did in that circle last night, when I tossed tobacco over my shoulder.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: And you walk through -- we were all asked to walk around the 00:47:00fire. I just want to note the fire was quite small, in a large pit and then they asked somebody to walk through the pit and you walked through the pit and when you did that I was like, "Ohhhhh!" Then I realized what you were doing.

SHARP: Because that's who I am.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Yeah.

SHARP: And it's only at my own lodge and I have a good friend whose also a lodge keeper, who's also Two Spirit and he's [Unknown word]. He's a sacred clown, he's a contrary and with him, I feel completely safe and at my own lodge, I feel completely save. And here, I feel fairly safe. Safer than I feel out in the other parts of the world. Safer than I feel at a non queer Powwow. This will be my first queer Powwow. The thought that I'm going to be able to dance tomorrow 00:48:00and nobody's going to come and say "You shouldn't be dancing that way" Nobody's going to say "You shouldn't be wearing that eagle bustle" nobody's going to say "Who do you think you are?" or that "You're offensive to the Elders" because I've heard that stuff before. Most people don't have the courage to say that to my face. But they say it to the other Two Spirit people, because I've been protected since I've started dancing men's traditional because I dance with the veterans and with only one exception, when they targeted a Trans woman and they outed her. They have no, for a moment, interfered for a moment with my ability to dance, with the exception of picking up a feather and they've kept me out because somebody has said that I was assigned female at birth, but that's changing too, because in the last couple of years, I've actually been a head veteran at a couple of Powwows, so it's changing slowly, but that bullshit is 00:49:00still there and I'm hoping that between this foundation and these gatherings and those youth, who are learning, it's going to change -- it has to change. Because like Ed said in there that, "that's the key to us surviving the next hundred and fifty years," it's not that -- oh we are special, but we have something that others that don't have. I can't tell you what it is and it's important. And it's not about power over, it's about our ability as Two Spirit people to shift energy, to shift how people change, you know, we're sponges most of us. Why do you think so many straight people want to go to Pride? Because the energy we all create together, you can feel it. You can be the most dense person in the world 00:50:00and have no connection to energy at all consciously and you go to Pride or you go to a gay bar, or you come to something like this, and it blows your mind. Hell! Being here blows our minds and we're all queer!

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Thanks. Thanks for sitting with me.

SHARP: My pleasure.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: I like hearing your stories.

SHARP: Miigwetch.

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Oh I just want to ask you really quickly--

SHARP: Yep

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Are you - oh yeah I did ask, you're okay with this being transcribed, maybe the audio portions going on line, nothing definite, so it will be stored though--?

SHARP: Yep. Yep just let me know. I'm easy, ask anybody. [Laughs]

DARRELL CHIPPEWAY: Thanks a lot.

SHARP: My pleasure, take care. Hope the rest of your interviews go well.