Breaking down barriers
If being Indigenous isn’t hard enough, Raylah Moonis is also a transgender woman. But despite the odds, Moonis appears unfazed
Raylah Moonis was optimistic about finding housing when she entered the apartment building in Toronto to meet with her potential landlady.
But before the middle-aged, transgender, Ojibway woman from Thunder Bay could even see the unit, the landlady rejected her application.
“I asked, ‘Is it because of my lifestyle?’ And she said, ‘I can discriminate all I want. These are my apartments,’” says the soft-spoken, mild-mannered Moonis.
Though it’s not clear which of her identities played into the rejection, the discrimination against Moonis is a basic reality for Indigenous and transgender people in Canada, with the intersection of those identities posing a particularly fraught challenge.
According to the International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare, “Aboriginal gender-diverse people encounter both institutional and interpersonal racism, homophobia, and transphobia.”
The systemic racism that affects Indigenous peoples has been well-documented, and has even been acknowledged by the Ontario government.
For Moonis, who moved to Toronto last year in search of better opportunities, the Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto has provided her the tools to navigate the challenges she faces.
NWRCT supports cisgender, trans and two-spirited women from the Indigenous community. The wide array of services on offer include mental health and trauma-related counselling, and help with housing and employment.
Supporting the LGBTQ community
Angela Boyers doesn't believe being isolated from the rest of society is good, but she says Indigenous people need
their own spaces (Zaid Noorsumar/First Stories)
Earlier in 2017, Moonis enrolled in the centre’s six-month long Breaking Down Barriers program that caters to LGBTQ-identifying women. The centre says the program helps women with basic life skills (such as financial literacy) and facilitates them in acquiring housing and employment. Other services of the centre are available at any time for the participants depending on their needs.
“We have a trauma worker upstairs so they can book in with her. We have the elder upstairs (for spiritual counselling),” says Angela Boyer, an NWRCT coordinator.
“Sometimes when you’re dealing with certain topics, it’s triggers. So sometimes we’re going to trigger people, but we also have to also know at the beginning of the class that that may occur, and that these are your resources,” she says.
Moonis affirms the effectiveness of the coaching she’s received at the centre, explaining that it has helped her address everyday challenges.
“(It’s about) how do we get ourselves into the mainstream, how we do manage our affairs, how we do manage our money, how we do manage our search (for jobs)?” she says.
Rebuilding communities
One of the distinctive features of NWRCT compared to non-Indigenous organizations is its emphasis on spirituality. For instance, the centre organizes drum circles, periodic vigils for murdered Indigenous women with healing ceremonies and sessions with elders.
“Being an Aboriginal, coming to an Aboriginal centre (or facility), it’s easier to connect,” Boyer says.
“Sometimes you have been fighting all your life being with racist people that sometimes you have closed yourself off to it already. Now that you’re an adult but you have this history, this trauma that you carry because that’s how you were treated…you’re going to go back to your comfort,” she says.
Boyer adds that the idea is not to live in isolation, as that would not be healthy. But the past matters. And the past hasn’t been kind to the native peoples of Turtle Island.
“Us as front-line workers are trying to do the work to help build up our community, to have a stronger nation,” she says. “So one day we can have our language as everybody else, where this is our own land and we don’t have it.”
She expresses her optimism about the future, referencing a program to introduce Indigenous languages in public schools, and other successes towards reconciliation.
The barriers that remain
The healing sessions are an important component of rebuilding the confidence of women who seek help, whether shattered by sexual abuse, or societal neglect and discrimination.
“I think to break that (stigma), it comes from the healing, making them strong, making them confident, giving them the life skills,” Boyer says.
She says that presenting a polished image, and appearing “educated and employable” can sow doubts in the minds of people who believe racist stereotypes.
The centre teaches the women that discrimination is not an indictment of their character, but a manifestation of others “carrying teachings of how to see things differently.”
Moonis adopted a similar approach when her tenancy application was abruptly dismissed.
“I thanked her – and I made her laugh,” she says. “But she still didn’t show me the apartment.”
Why did she thank her?
“Because if I blew up or whatever, she would win. I didn’t want to feed into what was given to me. I wanted to her to feel that we are all good people.”
