unrecognized

Gender-affirming options such as puberty blockers and hormones have unrecognized harms and no proven benefits and should therefore be almost entirely restricted until there are randomized trials proving that they work.

California’s federally unrecognized tribes contend with intertwined legacies of Spanish and Mexican colonization, California- and U.S.-funded genocide, congressional refusal to ratify treaties and state tribal terminations.

Even as unrecognized tribes work to assert their inherent sovereignty, settler structures serve to disempower us.

Olivia M. Chilcote is an assistant professor of American Indian studies at San Diego State University and the author of “Unrecognized in California: Federal Acknowledgment and the San Luis Rey Band of Mission Indians,” from which this is adapted.

My experience at the unveiling illustrates the complexity and contradictions of unrecognized tribal status in California.