Muffie
PRONOUNS: SHE/HER | TOWN SIZE: UNDER 80,000
“In those two minutes, sitting there trying to figure it out...this was my career, this was my job, this is what I was doing. But because I fell in love, I was given that choice.”
Throughout our lives, we may reflect on who we are. What values do we aspire to? At some time or other, we may look in the mirror, perhaps in a time of adversity, and ask ourselves:
“Are you being who you really want to be?”
Are you someone who knows there is suffering and does nothing to help fix it? Or are you a beacon that shines and offers hope to those who seek the safety of your strength? Sometimes, this strength isn’t something we recognize in ourselves, but others see it. Perhaps, it’s the words of a loved one that give us the push we need. Other times, we may come to a conclusion on our own and push ourselves to forge the path.
“Are you being who you really want to be?”
—
Monique “Muffie” Mousseau is an expressive and charismatic person, so it’s easy to see why she was a well-liked and respected law enforcement officer with the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation. But when she came out as a lesbian in 2005, her likability wasn’t enough to protect her from the abuse of anti- LBGTQ2S community members within her own tribe.
Muffie and her wife Felipa met in 2005. They encountered immediate resistance from the community of Pine Ridge. Muffie’s male superior in law enforcement made it clear that she wouldn’t be welcome in her role as an officer. He was offering her a choice: go back in the closet, or he would make her life hell.
Muffie knew that legally he couldn’t force her out of her job, but she had to weigh the realities of working as an out lesbian in a male-dominated career where women often face chauvinistic and misogynistic treatment. However, she was not willing to sacrifice Felipa or be untruthful about who she is, so she says the decision to leave took her about two minutes.
“In those two minutes, sitting there trying to figure it out…this was my career, this was my job, this is what I was doing. But because I fell in love, I was given that choice.”
Muffie and Felipa faced a barrage of harassment and homophobia in Pine Ridge. And although Muffie’s family was supportive, Felipa’s family, including several of her children, was not. There came a point where they no longer saw any benefit to staying in their community. It pained them because they both grew up in the Oglala Sioux Tribe, but they ultimately made the decision to leave.
“I said we're not ever coming back. We left in 2009 and moved to New Mexico, and it was a good transition. And you know, we only went back [to Pine Ridge] for weddings or funerals, and we never wanted to return there.”
Muffie and Felipa spent some time in New Mexico and then relocated to North Dakota to work the oil fields. They were building their lives and still had no intention of coming back to South Dakota.
“That was pure survival, but it was good experiences. We couldn't reach out to anybody, anywhere, and say, ‘Can you help us?’ We ended up having to face each other and say, this is what we're going to do, [this is] how we're going to survive. We depended one million percent on each other, and that's what got us through.”
When same-sex marriage became federally legal in 2015, they decided to get married. They contacted their tribe with the intention of having a ceremony back home, closer to friends and family.
“[When] we contacted our own tribe in 2015, we were told that 'we don't support that.' Somebody in the background of that phone conversation, they were like, ‘Gee, those are fruity people”’.
Met with opposition from their tribe, they were married instead at a group ceremony at Mt. Rushmore after obtaining their marriage license in Pennington County.
“A lot of our supporters showed up, and we didn't realize we had as much support. We thought there was going to be just my immediate family and a couple of friends right here in Rapid City.”
They went to a celebratory meal at their favorite Chinese restaurant, expecting about ten to fifteen people to show up.
Instead, nearly eighty people came to congratulate them.
. . .
Read the rest of Muffie’s story by purchasing your own copy of Becoming Visible Magazine
