I’m mixed Irish/Ojibwe and although I’m mostly proud of my heritage (my Irish great grandpa was in the ORANGE ORDER) it is hard to cope with the genetics. Ojibwe across genders naturally have big noses, larger browbones, broader shoulders, and stockier frames, and it’s always been something that I want to be okay with but I have those features much more than a native cis woman and they have the fat distribution to compensate while I don’t, maybe not yet maybe not ever. The plus side is my legs and thighs are just naturally strong and big and I have always had junk in the trunk hehe

Being trans makes a rift between the native community and myself too, and since I’m white it’s double hard to be seen as legitimate. I tried to do a sweat lodge with a local org, and the elder who was running it said I had to sit on the men’s side, because I would be “going into the womb of mother earth and have to go in the same way I came out”. He’s an old man and went to residential school so I understand why but it didnt make me feel good. He was generally standoffish with me and even though I swallowed my dignity and tried to do it anyways there was a touch of rain and he canceled it and never told me

Luckily I have found a queer friendly sweat lodge in my city and generally an accepting group of native people(so far, I just started going to their events), so we will see how that goes.