Clyde Hall was born on April 8, 1951 in Pocatello, Idaho. Coming from the Shoshone Métis tribe, Clyde grew up on the Fort Hall Reservation. He was primarily raised by his grandmother, Hazel Eleanor Truchot, who instilled an appreciation in him for storytelling and Native American legends.

Clyde’s mother was the first Native American woman in the area to become a nurse and certified alcohol counselor, and taught Clyde to prioritize his education. In Clyde’s integrated public high school, despite the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ messaging pushing him to discard his heritage, Clyde started an Indian Club, where Native and non-Native students learned beadwork, regalia-making, and singing.

Clyde then studied fine arts and pre-law at Idaho State University. There, he started another Indian Club, through which he met Emma Dann, a member of the Tudika band of Shoshone. Clyde and Emma went on to tour Europe together with a dance troupe Clyde had assembled, and Emma told Clyde about a dance called the Naraya that she had danced as a young girl. In 1974, upon returning from Europe, a group of Shoshone elders danced the Naraya for the last time for a group of Shoshone youth including Clyde. The elders said that if the young people wanted to carry the ceremony forward, it was up to them.

Through the Indian Relocation Program, Clyde moved to San Francisco to finish his law education, where he found an emerging local gay culture and Native American culture. He joined the Gay American Indians (GAI) as the group was still forming. Through GAI, Clyde attended the first gay rodeo in Reno, Nevada. He helped GAI become more involved in the rodeo over time, even setting up a booth called the Gay American Indian B Workers selling crafts.

As the AIDS epidemic took hold in the 80s, Clyde stepped away from San Francisco, making frequent trips back to comfort and mourn dying friends. He was the first speaker in the 1987 March in Washington, addressing nearly a million people. Clyde was also part of GAI discussions about peeling away from western terminology, and in 1990, Clyde presented on the importance of the word Two-Spirit to the American Anthropological Association in Washington DC.

Clyde then became involved in the opening of an Indian Art Museum in Grand Teton National Park, helping the museum curators understand the significance of the objects displayed and show respect for Native cultures. For the next few decades, he spent most of the year working in the Park Service, while spending winters working in the Shoshone-Bannock Tribal Court on the Fort Hall Reservation. He became the tribe’s first public defender and then the tribe’s chief judge at 35 years old, ultimately serving for 30 years. He helped develop the current Tribal Law and Order Code, updating it for the first time since the Indian Reorganization Act in 1935. Honoring Emma Dann’s legacy after her passing, Clyde established Dance For All People, a ceremony of healing and renewal. 

In recognition of his contributions, Clyde was the first ever Native American to be named one of the most influential gay individuals in the US by Out Magazine in 2000. The following year, he was nominated as one of the movers and shakers of the century. During his interview, Clyde reflects on the importance of the Two-Spirit movement, of unearthing repressed traditions, and of the next generations to carry the torch forward.