Lynn Gehl: Sex Discrimination, Algonquin Genocide, and Indigenous Women & Girls with Disabilities

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This video is an edited selection of questions and my responses from the March 30, 2023 famous5 speaking event regarding the 2022 Governor General's Awards in Commemoration of the Persons Case. Six Persons Case awards are granted annually.

I was honoured to be nominated for the work I did challenging the sex discrimination in the Indian Act re unknown and unstated paternity, and the "6(1)a All the Way!" effort with Sharon McIvor and other members of the Indigenous Famous Six. While I undertook this effort I also worked hard on two additional matters: the Algonquin land claims process aka the Algonquin genocide; and Indigenous women and girls with disabilities who are bigger targets of sexual, domestic, and online abuse.

Given the intersectional nature and the incredible oppression that Indigenous people have to contend with, and given that the award ceremony took place on traditional Algonquin territory, I opted to serve again by narrowing the longer panel discussion to matters that represent what I have worked on for more than 3 decades.

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Lynn is an author, advocate, artist, and public speaker. Her work encompasses both anti-colonial work and the celebration of Indigenous knowledge. She challenges Canada’s practices, policies, and laws of colonial genocide such as the land claims and self-government process, sex-discrimination in the Indian Act, the continued destruction of Akikpautik / Chaudière Falls–an Anishinaabeg sacred place, and Canada’s lack of policy addressing Indigenous women and girls with disabilities who are bigger targets of sexual violence. She weaves wampum belts, builds petro-forms, and paints. She also has several professionally published peer reviewed books: “Gehl v Canada: Challenging Sex Discrimination in the Indian Act” (2021), “Claiming Anishinaabe: Decolonizing the Human Spirit” (2017), “The Truth that Wampum Tells: My Debwewin on the Algonquin Land Claims Process” (2014), and “Anishinaabeg Stories: Featuring Petroglyphs, Petrographs, and Wampum Belts” (2012). She has several academic contributions in journals and chapters in books; more than one-hundred community contributions in magazines, websites, news papers, and op-eds; as well as two-hundred personal blogs. Lynn is frequently called upon as an expert by various media outlets to offer commentary on Indigenous issues.

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