About

Dr. Mel Lefebvre (she/they) is a Two-Spirit Michif, Nehiyaw, French, Irish traditional tattoo practitioner and community worker based in Tiotia:ke/Montreal. A citizen of the Manitoba Metis Federation, Mel’s grandmother’s family came from Fisher Branch, Manitoba to Quebec in the early 1900s. Some of her Métis family names include Delorme, Desjardins, Guiboche, Vivier, Malaterre, Jerome, and Roque. Her practice is focused on ancestral skin marking (traditional tattooing) as a mode of healing and reconnection for urban Indigenous people with a particular focus on 2SLGBTQIA+ and Indigenous women as well as reclaiming and imagining traditional gender-fluid tattoos in contemporary and future contexts. Mel is the vice-president of the board of the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal where she has served for many years and a professor of First Peoples Studies at Concordia University in Montreal.