PRETENDIAN

Wisconsin Arts Leader Accused of Faking Indigenous Heritage: Report

Kay LeClaire claimed Native American heritage and identified as two-spirit before evidence was unearthed they were of German, Swedish, and French Canadian descent.

A rising star in the Indigenous arts community of Madison, Wisconsin, was forced to apologize after being accused of falsely claiming Native American heritage. The racial fraud accusations were leveled at Kay LeClaire, a person who went by the Ojibwe name nibiiwakamigkwe and described themselves as two-spirit, an Indigenous term closely related to non-binary identity. Since 2017, LeClaire has claimed Métis, Oneida, Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Cuban and Jewish heritage, according to a Madison365 report on Tuesday. Their alleged deception began to unravel after an anonymous “hobbyist genealogist” posted evidence of LeClaire’s actual German, Swedish, and French Canadian lineage to an online forum in November. “I am sorry,” LeClaire wrote in a statement to Madison365. “A lot of information has come to my attention since late December. I am still processing it all and do not yet know how to respond adequately.” They said they would cease using their Native name and remove themselves from community spaces and projects. One collective co-founded by LeClaire, the Indigenous-owned tattoo studio giige, publicly severed ties with them this week, claiming LeClaire had separately “hurt” the group “on personal, cultural, and financial levels” in the past.