History of BAAITS
In the summer 1998 in Canada, Beverly Little Thunder asked for volunteers to organize the next International Two Spirit Gathering. Albert Ortiz and Dr Gene Hightower offered to set up a gathering in the San Francisco Bay Area. However by September, Albert moved to Las Vegas. Around Thanksgiving that year, Sally Ramon and Gene Hightower had dinner in Oakland with a medicine woman . This meeting led the two to agree to collaborate on planning a gathering .
The Metro Community Church in the Castro and the San Francisco LGBTQ Center allowed us to have free space for planning meetings and for potlucks. Gene had reached out to Morningstar and Darren English to add to the planning meeting in January 1999. Gino Barichello was involved in the first few sessions, before bringing on Ken Harper. As time passed, others joined, including Laura Oropesa, Ruth Villaseñor, Richard "Eagle Bear" Boyd, Christopher Zamora, Jaynie Lara, and T.J. Spirit Hawk. We decided to formalize our efforts by creating an ongoing organization.
Miko Thomas attended our meetings only a few times and but went on to start the BAAITS Powwow a few years later with the assistance of Ruth Villaseñor. The term Bay Area American Indian Two Spirits (BAAITS) was coined by Sally Ramon in a group meeting. We met with Ron Rowel from NAPCI to gain financial support. The Native American AIDS Project held our money. BAAITS was structured democratically. Any self-identified American Indian (either enrolled member or descendant of a US tribe) could participate in business meetings. We started as an organization committed to sobriety. All meetings began with prayer. The leadership roles were filled by Gene Hightower as spokesperson, Laura Oropesa as vice spokesperson, Ken Harper as treasurer, and Darren English, Morningstar Vancil and Sally Ramon as secretaries.
Two straight ally pow wow dancers Gilbert Blacksmith and Thomas Yellow Horse put on a dance exhibition fundraiser for BAAITS. Beaver a straight ally and a Choctaw medicine man prayed with us. Beverly Little Thunder and Florentine Blue Thunder were our two spirit spiritual leaders at the gathering . We held the 12th Two-Spirit International Gathering over Labor Day Weekend in 1999. Gene stopped down from leadership to teach Native American Studies at UC Berkeley in Fall 1999.