Osage transgender runs for office

Osage transgender running for Osage Congress shares her story

Jozi Tall Chief discusses growing up transgender/intersex in an Osage community

By Jacelle Ramon-SauberanJozi Tall Chief is making history as the first admitted intersex/transgender to run for a seat in the Osage government.

“I am the first intersex/transgender candidate in our tribe and I am making history by not only drawing attention to our tribe and issues,” said Tall Chief, “But we are enlightening our people to the old tradition, which we call today ‘Two-Spirit.’”

Tall Chief always felt in her heart that she was a woman but for the first 25 years of her life she lived as Alex Joseph Tall Chief V.

Tall Chief was born intersex, or as she puts it a “birth defect.” Intersex means Tall Chief was born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definition of female or male.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Transgendered Native in Miss Universe Pageant and Two Spirits Is "Thoughtful, Intelligent."