AAlec Whitewolf Butler (Mi’kmaq), they/them, identifies as Two-Spirit. AAlec is an award winning playwright as well as a filmmaker, they are the author of the plays Black Friday? (nominated for the Governor General’s Award for English Drama, 1991), Shakedown (1982, Boardmore Trophy for Best Play), Cradle Pin (1983, Boardmore Trophy for Best Play), Claposis (1985) and Medusa Rising (1995) nominated for several Dora Mavor Moore Theatre Awards, Toronto. Their films include Audrey’s Beard (2001) an experimental short film about being butch and Intersex pre-transition. MisAdventures of Pussy Boy: A Trilogy (2002-2006) are three short animated films about growing up Two-Spirit, told through the love story of two queer teenagers. First Love, the first instalment won the Best Short Award at the International Transgender Film Festival in held in Amsterdam in 2013 and the Charles Street Video Award for First Time Filmmakers at the InsideOut LGBT Film and Video Festival, Toronto. Trans Cabaret (2007) a video cabaret about all things trans was originally a touring play created with the Trans community as Artist-in-Residence at the 519 Church Street Community Centre (2005-2007). My Friend Brindley (2007) is a personal film about the life, art and activism of a member of the Amazons Motorcycle Club, a self-taught artist and Queer Elder storyteller. AAlec published their first queer novella Rough Paradise (2014, Quattro Books) They are working on a second novella for Young Adults called Muu’Suu: The Modern Teresias. They also have essays published in How Toronto Became Queer and Queers Were Here. Theatre is still a medium that inspires, a new play called Three Maries, produced in the format of a podcast as the main character is a queer activist podcaster who comes across evidence of their mother’s secret long distance love affair with another woman during the 1960’s Cold War years in West Germany. AAlec’s is also working on the script for an animated film featuring a Two-Spirit Dancer from Turtle Island (Canada) who becomes a famous performer in a cabaret called Wunderland in the Gay Scene of Berlin, Germany circa 1923-33, during the rise of Nazism, called Alex in Wunderland. AAlec spend their most formative years in West Germany during the Cold War, as an army brat, they have since screened their films in Berlin (2012) as a featured filmmaker representing Canada. AAlec curated film nights on the themes of Two-Spirit identity and Queer Mourning. AAlec recently retired from social work on the frontlines to concentrate on filmmaking, theatre and podcast projects for their production company Mad Lobster (2000-present).

Alec Butler is a Two-Spirit, Non-binary, Intersex activist and an award winning playwright, author and filmmaker. They write, direct, edit and perform in their videos and champions the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) and DIWO (Do-It-With-Others) aesthetic. Author of the queer novella Rough Paradise and the plays Black Friday?, Medusa Rising, Cradle Pin and Shakedown, Butler is a scholar in Indigenous Studies and Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto. Their research centres on Two-Spirit Queer Indigenous Literatures, Cultures, Communities and Politics. Alec is of Indigenous (Mi'kmaq) and settler (French/Irish) descent originally from Unama'ki (Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia).