OutSpokane's Heritage Pride Institute spotlights the history of our community's struggle for equality, annually featuring a different individual, advocate or artist whose work has advanced GLBT civil rights. The Institute consists of youth and community-wide forums, plus an evening meet-and-greet session with the year's specially chosen honoree, who also usually serves as the Pride Parade's Grand Marshal.

We established the Heritage Pride Institute in 2006 in response to a GLBT community request for more information about movement landmarks and leaders. We understand how important it is to recognize our heroes — and to educate our GLBTQA youth, and remind ourselves, of their legacy. It's hard to forge a path forward if we don't know how we got where we are. The rights many of us now take for granted were won with the blood, sweat and tears of many brave pioneers.
Internationally acclaimed author Patricia Nell Warren, whose 1974 novel The Front Runner challenged the mores of our nation regarding same-sex orientation, was the Heritage Pride Institute's first honoree.

In 2007, we were pleased to host Grethe Cammermeyer, the highest-ranking officer in the United States armed forces to acknowledge her homosexuality while still in the service. She successfully challenged the military's policy banning homosexuals prior to the implementation of what's now commonly called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

2008 Honoree

Steven Barrios
Long Time Holy Rain

OutSpokane's Heritage Pride honoree for 2008 is Steven Barrios (Long Time Holy Rain), a Native American community activist and HIV/AIDS educator who lives on the Blackfeet reservation in Browning, Montana.

Barrios has been a two-spirit leader for nearly 14 years, serving as a member of the Harm Reduction Board of the Denver-based National Native American AIDS Prevention Center, the Montana Harm Reduction Team, the Montana Gay Men's Task Force, the National Native American Community Planning Group and, from 2003-2006, the Montana Community Planning Group. He is currently on the steering committee for Pride Foundation Montana and the Montana Pride Network board. Barrios also teaches history classes for the Montana Two-Spirit Society.

"Two-spirit" is an umbrella term coined a dozen or so years ago by Native American gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender advocates to identify their unique community. Different tribes have used different words to describe GLBT members over time. Because two-spirit people were thought to possess both masculine and feminine energies, they were considered spiritually gifted and accorded special roles in tribal life — as counselors and mediators, healers and shamans.

"This changed with the arrival of the Spaniards and Christianity," says Barrios, who has made sharing the history and cultural traditions of the two-spirit people a mainstay of his prodigious outreach work.

"I'm very vocal," he acknowledges. "I try to reach as many people as I can." Education is his passion. "I'm out there working with the youth and the native people who don't know where they came from."

Barrios has always been out. The youngest of nine children, he knew who he was by the age of 8, and was well accepted by family, especially his mother, yet he was not inclined to get involved in two-spirit culture until he was well into adulthood.

It was Native American health issues, drug and alcohol abuse and HIV/AIDS, that got Barrios talking and teaching, searching for ways to bring people together. "I like to see communities unite," he notes. "When we unite, we're stronger. We need to get our voices heard."

Working together effectively requires cultural sensitivity. Barrios offers workshops and one-to-one cultural diversity training to those who seek to engage the two-spirit, or wider Native American, community.

He has been a strong organizer and facilitator of annual two-spirit gatherings held locally, regionally and nationally. These provide safe space for spiritual expression, healing, learning and fun. They instill pride in attendees in much the same way as the Heritage Pride Institute endeavors to enhance the dignity and self-respect of Spokane Pride participants.

Barrios is scheduled to address a gathering of youth as well as meet and greet a general audience at a reception at the Museum of Arts & Culture, June 13 at 5 pm.

In addition, he will serve as the Heritage Pride Grand Marshall, one of three Grand Marshals of the 17th annual Spokane Pride Parade on June 14.