A Two-Spirit Journey. The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elde. Critical Studies in Native History #Volume 18
by Ma-nee Chacaby, Mary Louisa Plummer.
Winner of Canada Reads 2025
From her early, often harrowing memories of life and abuse in a remote Ojibwa community, Ma-Nee Chacaby’s extraordinary story is one of enduring and ultimately overcoming the social and economic legacies of colonialism.
As a child, Chacaby learned spiritual and cultural traditions from her Cree grandmother and trapping, hunting, and bush survival skills from her Ojibwa stepfather. She also suffered physical and sexual violence, and in her teen years became an alcoholic herself. At twenty, Chacaby took her children and, fleeing an abusive marriage, moved to Thunder Bay. Despite the abuse, racism, and indifference she often found there, Chacaby marshalled the strength and supports to help herself and others.
Over the following decades, she achieved sobriety, trained and worked as an alcoholism counsellor, raised her children and fostered many others, learned to live with visual impairment, and came out as a lesbian. In 2013, Chacaby led the first gay pride parade in Thunder Bay.
Ma-Nee Chacaby has emerged from hardship grounded in faith, compassion, and humour. Her memoir provides unprecedented insights into the challenges still faced by many Indigenous people.
AWARDS
2016 Lesbian Memoir/Biography, Lamdba Literary Awards short-listed
2016 Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature short-listed
2017 Book Award, Oral History Association (2017) winner
2018 Alison Prentice Award, Ontario Historical Society winner
2017 Oral History Association Book Award winner
2016 Lesbian Memoir/Biography, Lambda Literary Awards short-listed
2016 Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature
2025 Canada Reads short-listed
2025 Canada Reads winner
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