Kai Pyle is a Two-Spirit Métis and Sault Ste. Marie Anishinaabe interdisciplinary scholar from Green Bay, Wisconsin. They are an Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison specializing in queer Indigenous studies, especially in Anishinaabe and Métis contexts.
Pyle is working on a book, tentatively titled Relatives Beyond Binaries: A Two-Spirit History of the Métis Nation, on gender diversity within the Métis Nation from its origins to the present. The book aims to unearth stories of individual queer, trans, Two-Spirit, and gender nonconforming people and restore them to the broader narratives of Métis history. Their dissertation focused on Anishinaabe Two-Spirit language, literature, history and art as different forms of queer Indigenous kinship-making.
Pyle is also involved in Michif and Ojibwe language revitalization work, and is a member of the Black and Indigenous Feminist Futures Institute (BIFFI) at the University of Virginia. In 2022, they co-hosted the Two-Spirit History Workshop Series with the Tkaronto Circle Lab, which brought together Two-Spirit scholars and community members to deepen their practice of archival research and writing. As a poet, they have also published a chapbook in Ojibwe and Michif, AANAWI GO, and in 2020 they curated an electronic display of poetry in Indigenous languages for the Field Museum’s new Indigenous North America exhibit.
Contact:
Select works:
“Refusing Berdache, Becoming Two-Spirit,” in Insurrect!, March 23, 2023. Available at: https://www.insurrecthistory.com/archives/refusing-berdache-becoming-two-spirit
“Introduced to Ogimaa: Women, leadership and flipping the perspective on colonial sources,” Histoire Source | Source Story 12 May, 2022, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mILKimtBJg
“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.