Saddle Lake proclaims itself ‘safe haven’ for transgender care

By Jeremy Appel, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter 

(ANNews) – On the 150th anniversary of Treaty 6’s signing, Saddle Lake Cree Nation announced that it will invoke the Treaty’s medicine chest clause to provide a “safe haven for gender-affirming care” in Alberta on its reserve lands.  

Invoking the medicine chest clause, which First Nations interpret as a promise by the Crown to provide signatories with full health-care coverage, “places these services outside provincial jurisdiction,” explains a Sept. 9 news release from Saddle Lake Cree Nation.

“By asserting its sovereign right to regulate health care on Treaty lands, Saddle Lake Cree Nation provides a legal and operational blueprint for First Nations nationwide to protect communities made vulnerable by colonial violence and upholding human rights against overreaching provincial legislation,” the release added.

Last year, Alberta’s government invoked the Charter’s notwithstanding clause to shield three pieces of legislation restricting transgender rights from judicial challenge. 

These pieces of legislation prohibit physicians from prescribing puberty blockers or hormone therapy to youth under age 16 (Bill 26), require teachers to notify parents if their children decide to change their names or pronouns for gender affirming purposes in school (Bill 27), and ban trans women from women’s sports (Bill 29). 

In May, Saddle Lake Cree Nation band council passed a resolution in support of tastawiiyinawak (2-Spirit), transgender and other gender diverse people, which explicitly rejected the UCP’s anti-transgender legislation.

At a Sept. 9 press conference during Treaty 6’s 150th anniversary gathering in Fort Pitt, Sask., Saddle Lake Chief Dale E. Steinhauer described the First Nation’s Health and Well-being Law as an extension of its opposition to these “dehumanizing” pieces of legislation. 

She drew a direct link between colonial policies that used the medical system to target Indigenous Peoples and 

“This law will take measures to exempt any clinicians from sanctioning by their governing or regulatory bodies from practising gender affirming care on our reserved lands and territories,” she explained. 

“This is what we would have wanted when our children were being experimented on and our women were being sterilized. It is your duty as regulatory bodies to uphold our Treaty, which you all recognize in your land acknowledgements.” 

Steinhauer added that health-care professionals licensed elsewhere in Canada will also be welcome to practice on the Saddle Lake’s three reserves in central Alberta.

“For too long, we have had minimal access to health-care professionals on our reserved lands, as promised in the medicine chest,” he said. “Today, we remove any of those barriers created by colonial processes.”

Dr. Asa Radix, president of the World Association for Transgender Health, addressed attendees via video feed. 

“Long before colonization, gender diverse people held recognized and valued roles within Indigenous communities and governance,” said Radix. 

“The erasure of those traditions was part of the violence of colonization. Their recognition and restoration are an act of justice.”

Radix cited escalating “hostility and violence” against transgender people in the U.S., where they reside, shows “why solidarity matters.”

“The challenges facing transgender people are not confined by borders,” they said. “When nations, communities, and institutions stand together, when we refuse to let people be isolated, erased, or silenced, we create something more powerful than any one organization can create alone.”

Dr. James Makokis, a tastawiiyinawak physician from Saddle Lake, related their struggles growing up 2-Spirit with what transgender youth are facing today. 

“When I grew up on my reserve and I went to school in town, I also felt that. I also felt ashamed and depressed and suicidal,” Makokis said, adding that this was the case even though their parents were supportive.

In a Sept. 10 news release, Friends of Medicare executive director Chris Gallaway expressed gratitude for Saddle Lake Cree Nation’s “bold leadership” in “asserting your sovereign rights, to our collective benefit.”

“Access to health care is a human right,” Gallaway added. “Everyone in Alberta deserves to feel safe and free of discrimination when accessing health care, and the care they receive should come on the basis of the best medical evidence, not politics and ideology.”

Anticipating the possibility of a legal challenge from the province, the First Nation has created a GoFundMe to raise money to cover the costs of defending its Treaty rights in court. As of writing, it’s about halfway to its $60,000 fundraising goal. 

A spokesperson for Premier Danielle Smith said Alberta’s government has no intention of challenging Saddle Lake’s decision. 

“Alberta’s government respects First Nations sovereignty,” wrote Sam Blackett in a statement to this newspaper. “As the provision of health care on First Nations land is an area of federal jurisdiction, this is a matter for Saddle Lake Cree Nation to work with the federal government on.”

“However,” he added, “this government stands behind our legislation.”