November 26, 2025 | Michail Takach

Patrick Firgens: surviving and thriving in his ninth life

After overcoming incredible challenges, Patrick has found balance, harmony, and purpose as a Menominee Two Spirit healer and guide.

Patrick Firgens

"Recognizing that I was Two Spirit was like a flag being raised in my soul."

The scent of burning sage is the first thing Patrick Firgens remembers. It is the smell of home, the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin, a place he spent a lifetime fighting to leave, only to return and discover it was a place where he could truly thrive. Now, standing in a community center, circling a dozen faces—some Native, some non-Native, but all searching for peace—he lights the smudge, sends the smoke skyward, and begins the recovery talking circle.

“Survival is the name of the game,” he tells them, his voice carrying the firm, clear tone of someone who has stared down death more than once. “Survival is who I am. I am not a victim.”

Patrick is a man who speaks in lifetimes. By his own count, he’s lived eight already. The ninth, the one he is living now, is dedicated to healing, sobriety, and reclaiming his ancestral role as a Two Spirit. His journey is a dizzying kaleidoscope of trauma and triumph: a childhood marked by bullying, a spectacular career as a nationally celebrated celebrity hairdresser, a descent into drug addiction in the shadows of Milwaukee nightlife, and extraordinary battles against life-threatening medical issues.

Patrick Firgens

Raised by the reservation

Patrick was born to parents who were still children themselves, both unmarried teenagers from the Menominee Reservation. His father was a Tourtillott, but Patrick was named after his grandfather Eugene Firgens.

“My grandfather was white, and my grandmother was Menominee,” he explained. “My mother married my stepfather when I was seven and became an Olson. Everyone in my family was an Olson – except me and my grandmother.”

In his culture, the first grandchild is a special designation, often raised by the maternal grandmother. For Patrick, this meant Julia Corn Firgens became the steady center of his universe.

“My grandmother had a huge role in my life,” Patrick recalls.

She was only 37 when he was born, and their bond became a cornerstone of his entire life. Sundays were devoted to the Catholic Church at St. Michael's in Keshena. Today, nearly 50 years later, that tradition remains unbroken at a new church.

“She’s 94 and still runs circles around me. Every Sunday is Grandma Day. We go to church, then Walmart, Goodwill, out to eat, and I still raid her purse for candy, just like when I was little.”

This safe, loving bubble quickly clashed with the world outside the front door.

“I was never in closet, not ever. I was skipping and prancing, covered in glitter, from the day I was born,” laughed Patrick. “I knew I liked boys, and I was shy around the boys I liked. My family always knew who I was.”

Starting school in Keshena, Patrick faced relentless and often brutal bullying. He was targeted for his feminine expression: his voice, his mannerisms, his preference for pretty things. He was fortunate to have many female friends, who were always quick to defend him. Even male adults, including teachers and school workers who should have protected him, were part of the bullying. By the age of seven, he heard a steady stream of hateful words – "faggot,” “queer,” and worse – all day every day.

He didn’t even know what these words meant, but he knew they were meant to hurt. He knew he liked boys, but he didn’t understand why that was a bad thing. He had crushes on the people he saw on TV: Simon LeBon of Duran Duran, George Michael, Erik Estrada from CHIPS, CC Deville from Poison. He loved the fashion and glamour of the era, aspiring to live in a world that existed far beyond his day-to-day world.

“After hearing those hurtful words so often, I started to believe I deserved to be hurt,” he admits. “I started to believe that I was a horrible person, someone who was lesser than others. When you start thinking that way, it makes it easier for people to abuse you. Abuse becomes almost a form of attention, and some attention is better than none in your mind. It is a vicious, terrible cycle of harm.”

His escape route was simple: running next door to his grandmother’s house and hiding until school was over. But he couldn’t run away forever, and his trauma rendered as ugly classroom behaviors. Today, Patrick believes he was suffering from undiagnosed ADHD, but neither treatment nor medication was available to him back then.

The breaking point came in second grade when a teacher physically hit him. In a panicked reaction, he bit her ankle.

“I was in big trouble now,” he laughed. “It was my word against hers, and the school believed her.”

Patrick was happy when second grade was over – until he found out that his second-grade teacher was coming to third grade with him.

His mother, recognizing this wasn’t going to end well, pulled him out of local school. At ten years old, Patrick was put on a bus alone and sent to North Dakota’s Wahpeton Indian School. He would spend the next seven years away in boarding school, far away from the world he knew.

“She made a very difficult choice,” said Patrick, “but I’m not sure what other choice she had. She was starting a new family with my stepfather, and I needed care I couldn’t get in Keshena.”

Building a community of care

Most Native children experienced extreme loneliness, isolation, cultural disconnection at boarding schools, dating back to the forced and violent separations of the 19^th century. However, Patrick remembers these years as a necessary education in survival. While the bullying didn't vanish entirely, the shared experiences of the students—kids from Alaska, the Lower 48, and across the globe—created an unexpected and lasting kinship.

“I wasn’t an outsider in this place, because it was filled with outsiders,” said Patrick. “That’s where my life really turned around. That’s where everything changed.”

“We became like siblings. We lived together, played together, roomed together, learned to live together, gained valuable life skills together, and learned how to survive in a cruel world together,” he explains. “We are still friends today on Facebook because our bonds were so strong.”

Although Patrick returned to the reservation for 9th and 10th grade, the old nightmare resurfaced. He was friendless, a target, and harassed for eight hours a day.

“It was enough to drive someone insane,” he said, “and no one did a thing to stop it. No one. Not a single adult. Bullied kids were abandoned to fight their own battles.”

Patrick regrets not having any gay mentors, but credits Jim La Rock for being someone he could count on.

“Jim always reminded me there was more to life than the reservation,” said Patrick.

“He knew I was gay, although I never told him, and he looked out for me. I can still hear the click click click of his cowboy boots on the high school hallways.”

Patrick took his destiny into his own hands and sent himself back to boarding school for 11th and 12th grades. There, he excelled, becoming student class president and finding a solid foundation of friends.

Upon graduating in 1991, Patrick made his second great escape. He recognized that he couldn’t be himself on the reservation, where gay men got beat up simply for being seen at the local bars.

“I fought my ass off to get off this reservation, and I told myself that I was never coming back here,” he told himself.

He went straight to beauty school in Green Bay, where he truly started to blossom.

Glitter and grind

Green Bay was a culture shock: a new, colorful world far away from South Branch. Living with his aunt Melanie, a beautician who inspired his career choice, Patrick quickly found his footing. He graduated in 12 months and, in the 1990s, launched an astonishing career.

He was dynamic, talented, and glamorous. He became a Green Bay sensation, styling the hair of Green Bay Packers’ wives and traveling for photo shoots and training. He became certified, visited Redken events in New York City, and worked with prestigious teams like Toni & Guy in Dallas.

“I was the shit in Green Bay,” he says simply. “I was a big deal.”

At 19, he discovered Za’s, the local gay bar located in a tiny, cruisy, smoky “boys’ town” filled with newfound temptations. He remembers the scene being far more underground, far more sexual, and far more masculine at the time.

“It was all men, all the time,” said Patrick. “It wasn’t a place that bachelorette parties would dream of going. It was very much a masculine space.”

A chance trip to Milwaukee introduced him to Club 219. Although he had to sneak in, as he was only 19, he was quickly accepted, embraced, and supported by a diverse community of drag queens and trans women.

“It meant so much to me to call these people friends,” said Patrick. “I’m coming from a little tiny reservation not knowing what faggot or queer is, learning to accept that’s who I am, and I had no one to guide or coach me. These people really taught me a lot: about the gay world, about what it meant to be a gay man. They raised me.”

“I decided, I’m taking back those hateful words from my childhood. I will reclaim and own what they mean to me, and these words will not bother me anymore. Today, I prefer them.”

After getting a taste of Milwaukee, Patrick decided it was time to leave Green Bay. He managed a Regis salon at Southridge Mall, rented a beautiful apartment, and owned a beautiful car. He was thriving in a glamorous new world for ten years.

And then, the party culture that he once found so liberating nearly destroyed him.

A dramatic descent

Patrick suddenly found himself in a terrifying downward spiral. What started as weekend indulgence quickly escalated into a daily battle.

“It was like one weekend, drinking, next weekend, coke, next weekend, heroin,” he said. “I remember the first time I saw heroin. We were at the Vortex club in Chicago. Someone chopped it up, and it was brown, not white. I asked what is this? And someone said, just shut up and do it.”

“The next thing I know, I was living a scene from the movie Gia: bumping into everyone, spilling drinks, inside this huge warm hug that I came to love. And the next day I wanted to do it all over again.”

Heroin wasn't readily available in Wisconsin, so Patrick and his crew would drive to Chicago to buy drugs, sometimes riding the curb through traffic because they were so eager for a fix. These trips started happening more frequently, and in the end, they became daily runs.

“Life became all about restocking my stash,” he said. “It is so unthinkable now.”

The journeys could take up to ten hours round-trip, as they’d stop and nod off along the way home, sometimes even being pulled over (and released) for distracted driving.

“I don’t know how we made it home,” said Patrick. “It was so unhealthy, so dangerous, so ugly. But that is how the addicted mind works. It’s not explainable.”

Patrick’s life eventually imploded. He lost his beautiful home, car, and job. He’d been evicted before, but in his most dramatic eviction, he lost all his worldly possessions: 15 watches, 30 expensive colognes, 100 pairs of shoes, everything he owned was padlocked inside, never to be seen again. This felt like the lowest possible low in his life.

Unable to pay his debts, Patrick started avoiding his dealer, until his dealer caught up with him.

“One day, I got a phone call that this man was coming over to get his money,” said Patrick, “and the message was clear: if the money wasn’t here, there was going to be violence. He had a gun, he had a knife, and I didn’t have what he wanted. There was no way I could come up with the money I owed him.”

Terrified for his life, Patrick called his mother and three sisters to come get him. He left Milwaukee and never looked back.

“Looking back, it was not an escape. It was a rescue. Leaving Milwaukee saved my life.”

At first, his return to the reservation felt like a surrender. Now, he realizes it might have been his greatest triumph. Moving home was the beginning of his ninth life, a commitment to survival in the face of incredible odds.

Along his journey, Patrick has conquered health challenges that few others could endure. It began in 2000, when he learned that he was HIV positive in a most surprising way.

“Someone kept leaving business cards at my door,” said Patrick. “It was just a simple, discrete, professional business card. ‘Please contact us.’ I assumed I was in some kind of trouble. Maybe it was a police officer, or a lawyer, or a collection agency. I never called them back.”

Finally, the news reached him: he had tested HIV positive and needed immediate care. Patrick was stunned. He’d accidentally avoided the truth – and treatment – for several months.

“I was very good at avoiding my problems back then. This taught me a lesson in owning them, no matter how hard it might be.”

The day he was diagnosed, he called his mother and asked her to tell his siblings and stepfather.

“I couldn’t handle their reactions,” he admitted.

While he has been living well with HIV for 25 years, Patrick has also faced a series of secondary healthcare risks. After being misdiagnosed with pneumonia, he wound up hospitalized for months (in Green Bay and Milwaukee) with blastomycosis. The disease, a rare respiratory infection caused by toxic spores, can be terminal even for a healthy patient. For someone with a compromised immune system, blastomycosis is especially dangerous. The doctors, sensing he was near end of life, encouraged Patrick to call his family and say his goodbyes.

But Patrick didn’t listen.

“I fought my ass off for 16 months to get better,” said Patrick. “And I got better.”

Patrick Firgens

Patrick Firgens

Patrick Firgens

Patrick Firgens

Later, he tested positive for Hepatitis C, which is very dangerous for people with HIV. Patrick’s prognosis was not good, and he was again told that he had a low chance of survival. Once again, Patrick did not listen. He entered rehab, became clean and sober, and got tested again. The virus was gone. His body had fought it off and killed it.

“You are one in a million,” the doctors told him. “You are a true medical miracle.”

He’s overcome several drug overdoses, near-fatal car accidents, and even being chased through the Third Ward by a man with a knife.

“But I’m still here,” he said. "I wasn't kidding when I said, survival is the name of the game."

Reclaiming Two Spirit heritage

After being sober for six years, Patrick’s purpose in life shifted. He returned not just to heal his body, mind, and spirit, but also to become the uncle he never had himself.

When he first arrived home, fresh from the city, covered in tattoos, piercings, black nail polish, and leather boots, his young nieces and nephews were terrified of him.

“They were deathly afraid of me, like I was a monster,” said Patrick. “I decided I was going to be the best uncle these kids had ever seen. And now I am.”

After returning to the reservation, he learned a surprising truth about his heritage.

“Only recently, I heard the term Two Spirit for the first time,” he said. “It was really frustrating to learn about this so late in life. It was not taught to us, or even spoken about, in the school systems. It is not something known within modern Menominee families."

“In ancient Menominee culture, Two Spirit people were revered. They were looked upon as the closest to the Creator because they carried both a male and a female spirit. They were mentors, leaders, guides, and highly regarded, even more so than the medicine men of their tribes.”

This sacred history was erased by colonization and Catholic conversion. Respect and reverence for Two Spirit identity was replaced by shame and stigma for LGBTQ people.

Patrick instantly recognized himself in the ancient role.

“This spoke to me. I knew I belonged to the Two Spirit life and the Two Spirit life belonged to me. It was like a flag was being raised in my soul.”

“When I was in beauty school, I really embraced my gay male side. Growing up, all the bullying made me wonder if I was meant to be born female, but I have never felt I was transgender. Now, I recognize why I was struggling so hard to achieve balance in my life. I was blocking my female spirit out of self-preservation.”

Patrick embraced the responsibilities of the role as he understood it: teaching traditional cultural ways, guiding the children, and bringing peace and guidance to people in need. He became the “nanny uncle,” living with his younger sister and taking care of her four kids, doing their hair, and teaching them how to survive in harmony with the earth.

“I don’t think a one-spirit can teach this full range,” he muses. “I can do this naturally. Teach girls how to cook, fish, prepare food, take care of the home; teach boys how to fight like a warrior, how to hunt, fish, build, fix. In Native communities, I don’t think men can teach what women know, or women can teach what men know, not at this innate and soulful level.”

Today, Patrick is the favorite uncle of nearly two dozen nieces and nephews. They help him count his sober days, and they look to him for guidance that their parents cannot always provide.

He also extends his mentorship beyond his family. He hosts a successful talking circle every Friday, open to both native and non-native community members. As a certified peer support specialist, as well as a trained recovery coach, Patrick is dedicated to showing others that survival is possible.

The friends he lost – thirteen in thirteen years, most to heroin overdoses – are tattooed on his soul. Some are even tattooed on his skin.

“I had to stop tattooing their names when the dying didn't stop,” he said. “But now, I am helping others to live and live well. Now, I celebrate the people who survive and thrive, rather than just mourning the people we have lost. Every time someone died, I knew that was supposed to me.”

The healing journey

The Menominee people, Patrick explains, are giving and loving people at heart, but the trauma of colonization has left deep scars. The stigma of being gay is still fierce, and the stigma of HIV/AIDS is even stronger in tribal communities than in white communities.

“If you’re known to be gay, you’re automatically seen as a target for abuse,” said Patrick. “This keeps a lot of people in the closet, who will never admit to anything, no matter what they are doing on the down low. If nobody can see it, it’s not happening, is how they justify it to themselves.”

But Patrick refuses to live with secrets.

“I’m open with everyone about my status and my identity. I’ve never hid it. Because I don’t want to have skeletons in my closet. If you have those, and people find out, they use it against you. So, if you’re honest, nobody can use it against you.”

He is now focused on ensuring the cultural teachings of the Two Spirit are fully restored to the community. He advocates for Menominee University to include Two Spirit history in their curriculum, challenging those who continue to exclude and obscure this heritage. He and his peers are currently working with the tribal legislature to organize a major Two Spirit Pow Wow next year, an event designed to re-educate the community, celebrate the role, and amplify Native pride.

Despite the fun, fast life he led in the city, he regrets nothing—except one hilarious moment.

“Since I was ten years old, I wanted to see Cyndi Lauper in concert, and then I finally got to see her in person,” said Patrick. “She came out into the audience, stopped at our table, and motioned for me to dance with her. And I froze. I completely froze. I couldn’t do it. One of my lifelong heroes was standing right in front of me and I couldn’t move. She held my friend’s hand and sang to her, but I was frozen. That’s my only regret in my entire life.”

In the city, Patrick had no one to hold him accountable. When he came home, he was living a very unhealthy life: drinking, using, he wasn’t even sure if his medications were working. But now he’s come full circle.

Patrick Firgens

Patrick Firgens

Patrick Firgens

Patrick Firgens

Now at home on the reservation, his family supports him 100% -- and holds him to a high standard of self-care. This healthy, loving, nourishing environment allows him to focus on healing himself and others.

“When I left here, I was dying to leave here, and now I see the reservation as a haven, a place where I can heal and learn and grow. This is a place where I can become who I was always meant to be. I can grow old here, and I can also grow wise here.”

Patrick knows that his ninth life is a life of purpose, and that his journey of the Two Spirit guide has only just begun. To anyone struggling against their own darkness, Patrick offers a simple, powerful message of hope:

“If you would have told me 40 years ago where I’d be today, I would never have believed you. I am lucky to be alive, and I am only alive because I kept fighting to live. When you fight the good fight, you’ll always win every battle – even if that battle is with yourself.”