_Illustrated by_ [**Paula Castro**](https://breedlondon.com/artists/paula-castro/)
Sometimes embracing tradition involves reinventing a few of those traditions. Indigenous fashion designer and LGBTQ+ advocate Geronimo Louie is no stranger to embracing his cultural traditions and identity. Geronimo—who is known as @geronimo.warrior on TikTok—has made a name for himself online using his design talents to both celebrate his culture and educate his followers on important issues in the Indigenous and LGBTQ+ communities.
Along with identifying as “Indigenous queer,” Geronimo also identi- fies as “two-spirit.” “Two-spirit” is an umbrella term created by and for indigenous people used to describe a variety of identities on the gender spectrum, such as feminine man, feminine woman, masculine man and masculine woman.
Keep reading to learn more about Geronimo’s fashion, work on social media and plans for the future.
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**Tell us a little bit about yourself.**
I'm Geronimo Louie. I am Chiricahua Apache and I am a small fashion designer brand that's working at home. I'm a content creator on TikTok.
**Tell me about how you’ve embraced being ‘two-spirit’, whether it be on TikTok or with your fashion design.**
My ‘two-spirit’ identity is really a historical identity that has been with my peoples for hundreds of years, and as sacred beings just as anybody else or any other thing that is living on this earth. And I really didn't understand the whole identity until after 2018, when I was first introduced to Diné Pride, which is a small organization that I currently work in as a youth director for the organization. Each Pride Month, we celebrate the indigenous ‘two spirit’, indigenous queer, trans individuals in our community. It was at that point that I started to understand the word ‘two-spirit’ and where it came from and like its origin stories. And then afterwards I started understanding that we had our own identities within our own cultures.
In my culture, a person who is male-body born and who takes on the gender roles of a female in a respective place and time, they would be called _nádleehí_, and that would be the name that I would go by today. With my ancestors, they would be referring to me as _nádleehí._ With my culture in particular, there were four actual genders that were very sacred to our people. But, the only existing one that we have today is _nádleehí_. The other three are either gone or they were just forgotten.
> [@geronimo.warrior](https://www.tiktok.com/@geronimo.warrior "@geronimo.warrior")
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> [♬ original sound - Warrior](https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-6876850634495249157 "♬ original sound - Warrior")
**How did you get involved with creating indigenous ribbon work? What about the art form really drew you in?**
I've always had a passion for fashion. Even when I was younger, I used to cut up my things and sew little things. That's when I really started to really understand who I was. And that was like someone who really likes to dress well and create different things. It wasn't till I started to understand my femininity and that I am allowed to be feminine and masculine at the same time. That's a sacred thing in my culture. And so I really wanted to take upon this new vision of myself as a feminine person by creating clothes for myself that were traditionally worn by women.
I created ribbon skirts and ribbon shirts and traditional outfits. Ribbon work in itself is so unique, but very common in different indigenous communities. It originally started from what I understand from the Ojibwe people, when they have a ceremony, they make these ribbon skirts and they wear them to these ceremonies.
Ribbon throughout history, throughout trading and understanding and teaching, it made its way down to different tribes, such as mine. So we incorporated ribbons within our own cultural outfits. I really wanted to take upon that as a historical teaching and understanding and apply that in today's world. Along with so many other indigenous creators on Instagram and Facebook, I also wanted to create a ribbon skirt because they're so beautiful. As a person who creates, as a person who designs, I was always taught that it's important to remember and really just take a hold of where it comes from. And that goes with all my culture and identity. So when it came to ribbon skirts, I really had to understand where exactly ribbon skirts originated, that was the Ojibwe people. And so I always pay respect by saying that and remembering them.
> [@geronimo.warrior](https://www.tiktok.com/@geronimo.warrior "@geronimo.warrior")
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> And that’s on [##landback](https://www.tiktok.com/tag/landback "landback")
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> [♬ Worship Instrumental - Instrumental - Adrian Jonathan](https://www.tiktok.com/music/Worship-Instrumental-Instrumental-6757198470060214274 "♬ Worship Instrumental - Instrumental - Adrian Jonathan")
**What would you say are some of your goals in working as a leader in your community?**
I truly believe that we are all leaders in our own way, and that's something that I do want to present and educate and explore with different people and hopefully, assure them that they do have some kind of control over their livelihoods and their future, as well as their past and making it into teachings and understandings to better their future.
And I feel like that's what I mostly want to do as a leader, as a person that is looked up to. My intent is to ensure that there is power within everybody, which there is, we all have voices. We all have phones and platforms that we can use from time to time to speak about issues that we care about. Overall, creating community is what I want to do.
**You have a platform on social media, how has that been for you? How did that get started?**
I had these other accounts that I used to have. Thank God they're gone, because they're so cringy. But I had been on Tik Tok for a while before I created this profile. I used to look at people and watch their stuff. I really enjoyed the platform itself and what it provided for viewers across the world. I really never saw any pure representation of indigenous peoples. And that's very common for us as people of color, and especially as indigenous peoples. A lot of the time when I meet people online or in person, they believe what their teachers have told them. That genocide had came in and wiped us all out. I've met people in real life and as well as on my platform where they're like, ‘My teacher told us that you guys were gone, like the fact that you're here and you're telling me that you're indigenous is amazing. It's astonishing to see that you're still here, kept with all your things, regardless of culture and biological genocide of your people.’ That in itself put a fire within me, an inspiration to continue my work as a content creator. Not so much as an attraction site, not someone that's gonna make clout out of my culture. That's not what I intended to do. That's never something I want to do. And that's something that I was always told not to do. I take great respect in my identity and who I am and where I come from, as well as who I present to the world.
The best way that I thought I could do this is to just provide some kind of education to the world. As a person of color we come from a background where we're told that our history that we've been told through generations is wrong, and we need to believe the systematic way of learning and understanding things, which is completely whitewashed all that time. I took this opportunity in my hands to relate to not only non-indigenous peoples, but other indigenous peoples and collaborate on our history and teach people about who we are and where we come from and where we're going.
> [@geronimo.warrior](https://www.tiktok.com/@geronimo.warrior "@geronimo.warrior")
>
> [♬ original sound - sadie monday](https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-6804868817483746053 "♬ original sound - sadie monday")
**Looking to the future, what do you think is next? What do you see in the next five years?**
Well, I guess it depends on what we're talking about, personal versus social versus worldwide. Personally, I just hope that I'm in a place where I'm supporting myself in the sense where I'm able to have certain things accessible to me, like a house, a car, a job and occupation. I have an occupation, which is creating clothes, but I want to expand that brand and create representation. Taking up space where we're not allowed to take up space all the time. With my platform, I wish to continue to inspire people to use their voices and to talk about things that are important to them.
There's not a lot of issues that I know myself and I watch other content creators that teach me things, whether it be like Black Lives Matter, Stop Asian Hate and you know, things about ICE and abolishing that kind of systematic oppression against Latinx communities. Even other indigenous communities have different issues from my community because they have different teachings and they have different cultures and they live in different places where their livelihood is being threatened.
For the future, I hope there's a lot of educational opportunities for everybody. And there's a lot of growth for a lot of minority groups into demolishing systematic oppression and overcoming that step. Just continue thinking about the youth, because that's what we—as indigenous peoples—are taught to do.
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