Beverly Little Thunder was born on December 31, 1947, in Los Angeles, California. Her early years were divided between Los Angeles and her grandmother’s home in North Dakota. 

After the death of Beverly’s baby brother following a house fire, her abusive mother descended into alcoholism. Beverly took on immense responsibilities, caring for her siblings amidst an unstable home environment. She missed substantial schooling due to her caregiving duties, and spent time in and out of foster care, government-run boarding schools, a convent, and an orphanage.

Beverly was always drawn to women. At age sixteen, seeking her mother’s acceptance, she married a man and started a family. However, a divorce soon followed, followed by another marriage and divorce, leaving Beverly with a total of five children. In 1973, following a Sundance ceremony in South Dakota, Beverly became involved with the American Indian Movement (AIM) in Los Angeles. Through AIM, she discovered the word “lesbian” – the label she’d been seeking.

When Beverly’s ex-husband found out she’d had an affair with a woman, he threatened to take away custody of her kids, leading Beverly to quickly marry another man in 1977. Her new husband was an alcoholic who would disappear for months at a time, making it easy for Beverly to pursue relationships with women.

While becoming a nurse in Orville, California, Beverly found some community in the Gay American Indians group, yet didn’t fit in even with them due to the party culture of the time. In 1984, she prayed to meet a woman who was sober, at least part Native, and understood Beverly’s spirituality. At Sundance that year, she met a woman who seemed like the answer to her prayer, and ultimately left her husband.

In her late 30s, Beverly came out to her Native community; in response, she was told that “women like [her] were taken out in the desert and shot.” Despite the rejection, she was supported by two older women who told her, “If our people understood their traditions and if they remembered, they would be so honored that you were here.” Her brother then reminded her of a dream she’d had of a Sundance with women dancing around shade-giving trees in a big circle. Inspired, she organized the first-ever women’s Sundance in 1987 in Arizona.

Around the same time, Beverly leveraged her position as a nurse to care for AIDS patients in Phoenix during a time of widespread fear and stigma. Meanwhile, the woman who had seemed like the answer to her prayer turned out to be abusive; after four years, a dying friend made Beverly promise to leave the relationship. She did.

Over the decades, Beverly’s advocacy for Two-Spirit people expanded. She’s witnessed the emergence of Two-Spirit alliances and Pride parades, notably participating in the Standing Rock protests and fostering acceptance within Indigenous communities. She was named Grand Marshal at Minneapolis Pride in 2001, and again in Vermont in 2016.

After years of navigating conflict and moving locations, today the Sundance ceremony thrives in Vermont as the only all-women and Two-Spirit Sundance in the world. Beverly and her wife, OUTWORDS interviewee Pam Alexander, happily reside today in Huntington, Vermont. A Lakota Elder, Beverly is a member of the Standing Rock Lakota Band from North Dakota.