Klyne hopes her story can inspire others

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/02/2019 (2478 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Michelle Klyne was 16 years old when she was forced into human trafficking.

Raised in Dauphin, the now 33-year-old told her story at Brandon University on Thursday. Her hope was that by sharing her experience she might help others going through a challenging situation.

“I want to be that champion that leads and can make change for a lot of people,” Klyne said.

At a young age, she was put into Child and Family Services care. As a transgender two-spirit Indigenous woman, she was rejected by the system, said Klyne, whose two-spirited name is Landed Hummingbird.

“CFS stuck me in a hotel room and said that they didn’t have any LGBTQ foster families, or didn’t have anywhere to put me because I was problematic,” Klyne said. “They basically left me in Dauphin at the Highland Motel, paid for my hotel room, and transferred me around from group home to group home.”

She grew up without a father, and her mother was an alcoholic, so she was missing an important support network, she said.

At a very young age, she started to view herself as someone who wasn’t worthy of anything, including love, so she turned to men to get affection.

She was getting trafficked when she was 16, 17 and 18 years of age, she said. She didn’t realize she was being trafficked — she was told to go to a hotel room, and guys would make money off of her. They would get paid upward of $100, and she was left with $20.

It seemed like a never-ending cycle.

“I was sent everywhere,” she said. “I was doing a lot of sexual favours for different guys, whether it be policemen, or firefighters, or guys in limos with money or lawyers, there was just every guy that had a position, it seemed.”

In 2009, she decided to try to turn her life around.

“I felt like I wasn’t going to live any longer,” she said. “I was skinny, I was malnourished and I felt like the spirit inside of me was going — the light inside of me was dimming.”

She went to see an elder at Circle of Life Thunderbird House in Winnipeg, where she talked about issues and problems she had and went on a five-day vision quest where she didn’t eat for five days. She also participated in numerous sweats — a cleansing and healing ritual, most often done in a sweat lodge.

Doing this helped her to release her anger, trauma, sexual abuse, mental and physical abuse and everything that was going on when she was trafficked, she said.

“Things started to feel easier, and things started to get better. I felt like my head was a little clearer and a little better.”

So, she went back to school and got her Grade 12, then enrolled at Red River College. When she was in college, she worked hard and said she started to see her own potential. She won the volunteerism award and courage award and became top of her class.

“I turned my life around on my own,” she said.

Before she was even finished college, she was getting multiple job offers.

She took a temporary position with the Manitoba Metis Federation, and now, as a college graduate, she has moved on to a position with the Clan Mothers Healing Lodge as project manager. They’re working on co-ordinating three gatherings between sexually exploited women, and helping to create resources for them, she said.

After her talk at Brandon University, she hoped people would feel more confident to speak out.

“No matter what you’re going through in life, no matter what obstacles you’re facing, you can beat those obstacles,” she said. “I am an example of having every single obstacle, stemming from child abuse in every form, being visibly Indigenous and visibly a trans woman, having addictions and being trafficked (and here I am).”

It’s important for students to hear because it’s a first-hand account, said Serena Petrella, who works as a sociology and gender and women’s studies professor at Brandon University.

“(They can) hear first-hand what can happen when a First Nations, trans individual is treated so badly,” Petrella said. “It’s a kind of lesson that resonates strongly with them, and hopefully changes their mentality.”

Having people share their own experiences is a way to keep the conversation going, said Stefon Irvine, chairperson of Brandon Pride and member of the Brandon University LGBTTQ Collective.

“(It’s important to) provide more context to what’s happening for queer people of Brandon,” Irvine said. “It’s good to see those campaigns come to light and have that action.”

» mverge@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @Melverge5