Ryan Hanley
Special to the Tribune/Weekend Advisor.
Lake City Secondary School students had a rare opportunity Wednesday, April 19 as award-winning author Ivan Coyote dedicated the entire day to sharing their craft with the school and community.
The day began at the Columneetza campus as Coyote shared a story with the grades 7 to 9 students about growing up as the oldest child of more than 30 cousins, and the burdens that came along with that title.
The story honed in on Coyote’s cousin, Christopher, a monumentally-unlucky character, who suffered a horrendously funny injury while skating down a luge-like hill. When asked about Coyotoe’s performance of the story, Grade 9 student Macy Lainchbury said: “It was really super funny.”
The second story Coyote shared revolved around an incident that occurred in their adulthood. A group of teenaged girls initially identified Coyote as a male, and then became incredibly rude when they realized Coyote did not fit a category they were comfortable with.
After the second story, Coyote opened up the floor to questions. One student asked if cousin Christopher’s luck ever changed.
Coyote revealed Christopher had take his own life when he was in his early 20s after experiencing a lifetime of verbal and physical abuse from his peers at school.
The students let out an audible gasp. Silence fell over the gym when Coyote added Christopher had spent part of his high school experience in Williams Lake.
The performance at the Williams Lake campus followed and it was one Coyote had written especially for this visit. Since it was for an older audience, Coyote delved more deeply into Christopher’s experiences in high school.
In the afternoon Coyote did a breakout session with the Gay-Straight Alliance groups, as well as some Social Justice and Leadership students from both campuses.
During those sessions, students had a chance to share their experiences of what it feels like to not fit into society’s definitions of normal and about how they could create safer spaces for everyone in our schools.
After the session, Trish Maas, one of the Gay-Straight Alliance advisors, said Coyote was an “amazing storyteller with an important message.”
Coyote ended an already exhausting day by delivering an evening performance to a group of interested community members.
More than 30 people came to the Columneetza campus library and, over the next hour and a half, Coyote talked candidly with the group about how volatile the climate is for the trans community right now, particularly in the U.S.
Coyote also acknowledged the progress that has been made in communities like Williams Lake. Coyote did readings from their most recent book, Tomboy Survival Guide. The reading ended at 8 p.m., however, Coyote stayed for another hour signing books and talking with audience members.
Sean Sheridan, a Grade 8 student in attendance, said “it was great experience and it was very educational for students who still had more to learn about transgendered youth.”
Shortly after 9 p.m., 12 hours after the start of the first performance, Coyote walked out of the school still talking with members of the audience. At about 10:30 p.m., Coyote posted a thank you message on Facebook to various people involved in the day.
Lake City Secondary School and its surround community sends its thanks to you, Ivan.
Author’s note: the pronoun Ivan Coyote uses is “they.” The term trans* refers to all the identities within the gender spectrum, rather than the simply binary of male and female.