Ma-Nee Chacaby

Ma-Nee Chacaby (born July 22, 1950) is an Ojibwe-Cree lesbian writer, elder, spiritual educator, and activist from Canada. She is most noted for her memoir, A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder.

Biography Born and raised in the remote Northern Ontario indigenous community of Ombabika, Chacaby escaped the residential school system because she was away hunting and trapping with her stepfather when government agents arrived in the community during the Sixties Scoop. She also lived in Winnipeg and Manitoba, and later in Boston.

While living in Thunder Bay, she sparked a local controversy when she openly identified herself as a lesbian in a television news story for Thunder Bay Television in 1988. a practice she pursued as part of her healing, before writing and publishing A Two-Spirit Journey. She is fluent in both Cree and Ojibwe and recorded Alcoholic Anonymous' The Big Book in Objiwe so the text could reach more people in need of recovery. She is a parent to biological children, foster children, and adopted children. It is the 18th title in the Native History Series published by the press. Methodologically, it combines social science and Indigenous oral history. The authors conducted over one hundred hours of interviews as part of their writing process, and the book deals with themes of child abuse, alcohol abuse, sexuality, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Critical acclaim The biography was awarded the Oral History Association's 2017 Book Award, as well as the Ontario Historical Society's 2018 Alison Prentice Award for the best book on Ontario women's history. In addition, A Two-Spirit Journey was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir/Biography at the 29th Lambda Literary Awards in 2017, and was shortlisted for the Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher at the 2017 Manitoba Book Awards.

In 2019, A Two-Spirit Journey was published in French as Un Parcours Bispirituel by Les éditions du remue-ménage.

In 2025, A Two-Spirit Journey won the Canada Reads competition, having been championed by Shayla Stonechild.