Day 26. Digital Sovereignty and Queer Spaces Online.
Indigenous and queer communities have always built sanctuaries, sometimes in the forest, sometimes in basements, sometimes in ballrooms. Today, many of these sanctuaries live online. From encrypted chat rooms to digital art collectives, queer and Indigenous people are claiming sovereignty in the digital realm, refusing to let the internet be only a place of surveillance and erasure.
Digital sovereignty means shaping the ways communities use technology to protect culture, language, and identity. For Indigenous activists, it can mean archiving oral traditions online or creating platforms where stories are owned by the people who tell them. For queer communities, it is the creation of forums, zines, podcasts, and virtual Pride events where safety, visibility, and creativity flourish.
These digital sanctuaries are more than spaces of escape; they are spaces of strategy, healing, and joy. They prove that resistance adapts, and community endures, even in pixels.
Stories of Survival and Creation
“If our bodies are sacred, then so are our stories. And if our stories are online, then we must guard those spaces with the same love.” – Anonymous Two Spirit Activist
Two Spirit online networks create cross continental connections for Indigenous queer and trans people, offering both community care and cultural revival.
Queer archives like the Digital Transgender Archive preserve histories long erased, ensuring trans and queer ancestors are remembered and honored.
Grassroots creators on TikTok and Instagram turn digital platforms into cultural classrooms, teaching language, history, and pride with every post.
Learn More
- Organization: INDIGiQUEER – Facilitating safe community connection spaces through live events, community calls, supporting mutual aid drives, and providing fiscal sponsorship for program applicants.
- Resource: ‘A Space to Vent’: Cultivating Indigenous Queer Digital Communities Through Relations of Care and Support By Georgia Coe, published in the Journal of Global Indigeneity
- Organization: LGBTQ+ People of Color in Online Safe Space – The Trevor Project
- Digital Transgender Archive – The Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) increases the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world.
- Organization: Indigenous Protocol and Artificial Intelligence Working Group – developing new conceptual and practical approaches to building the next generation of A.I. systems from an indigenous perspective.
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