Transfer/transform: kinship and trans identity in Bean Yazzie’s powwow participation

Siddons, Louise (2025) Transfer/transform: kinship and trans identity in Bean Yazzie’s powwow participation. Association for Art History: annual conference, University of York, York, United Kingdom. 09 - 11 Apr 2025.

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

The artist Bean Yazzie (Navajo, b. 1978) has been dancing at powwows since they were a young child. Powwows are pan-Indian intertribal gatherings that were developed in response to the need for kinship- and coalition-building after the genocide of Native North American people by European settlers. Every powwow includes a codified set of events including a series of dances that require specific regalia, handmade by participants and/or their family members and friends. The dances have historically been organised along binary gender lines; from childhood, Yazzie has danced in traditionally masculine categories. As they got older, they began to experience harassment at powwows because of their perceived gender transgression. In their twenties, they came out as a lesbian and for some time stopped dancing. Another decade later, they used Navajo constructions of gender, describing themselves as ‘dilbaa’. More recently, Yazzie began to articulate their dilbaa identity in terms of trans experience. In 2024 they re-entered the powwow scene by attending their first two-spirit powwow, where they were caught by surprise when multiple people thanked them for their dancing — a complete reversal of their earlier experience and an expression of the power of chosen kinship in queer community. Afterwards, their brother made them a gift of his powwow regalia — a striking gesture of kinship from Yazzie’s birth family that honoured their trans identity. In this paper, I explore the material meanings embedded in the regalia, its materials, and its deployment in fields of memory, kinship, and Indigenous trans identity.

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