Research
Symposium
2026

Richard Jenkins is a 61 year old Cree-Metis with Indian Status from the mixed community of Moose Mountain, Alberta. He is a gay Two Spirit cis-gendered man and has been ‘out’ to friends, family and community since he was 19 years old. Over the past forty plus (40+) years, he has been working with Indigenous communities and governments throughout Canada as a community developer and health promotions advocate in the areas of addictions, long-term care, HIV/AIDS, sexual orientation and gender identity, family and community healing, child welfare, health policy and programs and urban Indigenous development. In the mid-2000’s Richard received the community development award from the Alberta Aboriginal Role Model Awards and more recently received the Health and Medicine award from the Okimaw (Men’s) Awards. He has served community both as a paid employee as well as a volunteer at local, provincial, national and international levels. Richard currently sits as a member of the Community Council of the E2S – Edmonton 2 Spirit Society as one of their Knowledge Keepers/Elders. Richard was the first Executive Director for the 2 Spirits in Motion Society and is a founding member of the organization when it was first conceived in 2003 at the 1st Canadian Forum on Two Spirit Peoples, HIV/AIDS and Health in Edmonton, Alberta. “I ‘came in’ to the 2 Spirit circle in 2001 when I was invited to help bring together 2SLGBTQI+ people together in Edmonton. I’ve stayed in the 2 Spirit circle since then to continue expressing my commitment to helping improve the quality of life of 2 Spirit and gender and sexually diverse people and co-create safe and supportive social environments for our part of the Indigenous gender diverse community.