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Sharron Proulx-Turner was a two-spirit Métis writer. She investigated themes of Métis storytelling and was recognized as a mentor to other writers.

Writing

Her first publication Where the Rivers Join: A Personal Account of Healing from Ritual Abuse, was published under the pseudonym Becklane to protect her identity as her life was still endangered.

Her writing covers a variety of genres: poetry, memoir, and mixed-genre historical fiction. She is widely anthologized, appearing in Double Lives: Writing and Motherhood, Crisp Blue Edges: Indigenous Creative Non-Fiction , My Home as I Remember , and An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature in English.

After she was diagnosed with cancer, the Indigenous Studies Literary Studies Association hosted a roundtable on her works: "Decolonial Solidarities and the Work of Sharron Proulx-Turner" which brought together writers to reflect on her influence as an activist, editor, and mentor. After her death in 2016, the themes in her writing were the focus on a symposium held in her honour. Her final publication was released posthumously by Kegedonce Press.

Proulx-Turner acted as a mentor to writers in the Canadian literature community. particularly for emerging Indigenous writers, and advocated on behalf of the field of Indigenous literature and its writers. She created opportunities for Two-Spirit and gender non-conforming people in ceremony and in writing communities.

Themes

Her writing weaves together historical and contemporary stories of Two-Spirit women Her memoir challenges the ideal of a whole, true, female self when healing from childhood experiences of abuse and instead produces discomfort through fragmentation, dialogue, and juxtaposition.

She wrote about the self, ex

A symposium on her work was focused around mixedness and mixing, Métis storytelling, and autobiographical and biotextual aspects of her writing.

Indian Rights for Indian Women

Indian Rights for Indian Women was an advocacy group that advocated for the reinstatement of Status for First Nations women who had lost their Status by marrying men without Status. The organization was created in 1973.

The Indian Homemaker's Association and its founder, Dr. Rose Charlie, influenced the structure of the IRIW.

History of Bill-C-31
Main article Bill C-31

Notable Members

 * 1) Kathleen Steinhauer
 * 2) Nellie Carlson

Several people were not members of Indian Rights for Indian Women, but provided support, such as Maria Campbell and the group's lawyer.

from http://www.nwac.ca/files/reports/AboriginalWomensRightsAreHumanRights.pdf
"Sandra Lovelace, a Maliseet woman, lost her Indian Act status and band membership when she married a non-Aboriginal male in 1970. After her divorce, she was forbidden to live again on her Reserve, the Tobique reserve in New Brunswick. On December 29, 1977, she filed a complaint with the United Nations Committee on Human Rights under the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Going to the international level represented the only recourse for Native women at that time. In 1974, the federal government and the Native Indian Brotherhood had created the Joint Cabinet/NIB Committee for joint policy making. The government had promised the NIB that it would not change parts of the Indian Act until the entire Act was changed, and that any amendments would be cleared through the Joint Committee before going to Parliament. In 1975, the Joint Committee began working on revisions to the Act with respect to Indian women. Indian Rights for Indian Women was excluded from these discussions. The new Human Rights Commissioner, Gordon Fairweather, stated that “The fact that they are not represented is itself discriminatory." At a December 1977 meeting of the Joint Committee, the government claimed that it was not clear that Aboriginal people had the education rights that the NIB claimed. In turn, the NIB refused to discuss the rights of Indian women, claiming they were even more tenuous. The NIB withdrew from the Joint Committee in April 1978 and the issue of Indian women's rights remained unresolved. "

"Pressure on the government to amend the Indian Act was mounting by 1977. Passage of the Canadian Human Rights Act that year provided another focus for that pressure. Since the government could not amend the Indian Act at that time without going through the Joint Committee, it exempted the Indian Act from the application of the Human Rights Act. This action foreclosed the possibility that Indian women, strong advocates for change through Indian Rights for Indian Women and other organizations, would use the Canadian Human Rights Act to challenge the Indian Act. This exemption, in s.67, was intended as a temporary solution, but it is still in the CHRA"

from http://www.lawjournal.mcgill.ca/userfiles/other/869650-sanders.pdf
On top of the low level of governmental funding, the government's insistence that funded groups represent both status and non-status women divided the organizations from the start and made agreement upon any controversy concerning status virtually impossible. Such was the fate of Indian Rights for Indian Women, a separate national organization formed after the national Indian women's conference in Saskatoon in 1972. The group, which organized around support for Jeanette Lavell, was forced, as a condition of federal funding, to have equal numbers of status and non-status women at their meetings. No more effective way to stifle that organization could have been devised.

from http://www.parl.gc.ca/content/lop/researchpublications/bp410-e.htm
The debate also emphasized fractures within the Aboriginal community. Women’s groups, led by the National Committee on Indian Rights for Indian Women and the Native Women’s Association of Canada, advocated a quick legislative solution to the problem. Other Indian groups, in particular the National Indian Brotherhood/Assembly of First Nations (AFN), were hesitant about legislative changes. While the AFN expressed opposition to the discrimination in the Act, it argued that membership rights should be the prerogative of First Nations and opposed piecemeal changes to the Indian Act in the absence of constitutional reform.(9) This highly divisive conflict was often (and continues to be) posed in terms of women’s rights versus Indian rights. Douglas Sanders, writing in 1984, described the debate over sexual discrimination in the Indian Act as the “single most contentious issue in Canadian Indian policy” at that time.

from http://apr.thompsonbooks.com/vols/APR_Vol_5Ch1.pdf
Lavell and Bedard, then, were up against both the Government of Canada and a multitude of powerful, well-funded, and politically-organized Indian associations. The two women did receive strong support from a women’s group known as Indian Rights for Indian Women (IRIW); however, this organization was less efficient and less influential than the NIB, the IAA, or any of the other Indian associations. The group did not formally incorporate until 1974, and was therefore unable to intervene on behalf of Lavell and Bedard. Instead, Lavell and Bedard were defended before the Supreme Court by the Native Council of Canada (NCC), a national organization for Métis and Non-Status Indians, on behalf of IRIW.

Also this: Kroswenbrink-Gelissen, Sexual Equality as an Aboriginal Right, pp. 85–88; Weaver, “Indian Women, Marriage and Legal Status,” p. 19; Weaver, “First Nations Women and Government Policy, 1970–92,” p. 97–100.

Yukon women
YIWA women were involved in leadership training, education and national lobbying through the Indian Rights for Indian Women’s national committee and the Native Women’s Association of Canada. Some YIWA members sought or obtained executive positions on these two national bodies, including Edi Bohmer, Marion Sheldon, Margaret Thomson and Jean Gleason.