Historians say federally run boarding schools and other tactics to assimilate Native people into white culture have taught generations of Navajo, including Nelson and Sherman’s parents, to discriminate. Navajo leadership are an example. In 2005, the Tribal Council passed the Diné Marriage Act rejecting same-sex marriage.

…“We are seeing clearly the aftereffects of what colonialism can look like and how it really shifted our values as Navajo people,” Nelson said. “Whereas at the time, if you were LGBTQ and growing up in a Navajo traditional family, families celebrated that fact. They said that we were sacred. They said that we had sacred roles.”

Those roles included mediators and leaders.

…When First Man and First Woman weren’t getting along, tradition says, it was the nádleehí [intersex, multi-gendered spirit] who intervened.

…“Navajo family used to pride themselves to have two-spirited people in their family,” Smiley said. “Some of them would take someone by the arm and say, ‘This is my boyfriend. This is my boyfriend.’ That would show people ‘This person makes me rich.’”

…Across the Navajo Nation, elders have come to the aid of granddaughters and grandsons when the rest of the family rejects them. Medicine men revere the “two-spirited,” as they’re sometimes called.

…“When I came out to my family, my mother took it the hardest, but my grandparents didn’t,” said Alray Nelson, an LGBTQ rights activist. “My grandmother sent me a handwritten letter when I was in college. My grandfather doesn’t speak English. He speaks Navajo fluently. He told my grandmother to tell me I would always have a home with them, that I’m his son.

Pride in the ‘two-spirited’: Navajo LGBTQ youth find unlikely champions in their elders | Arizona | wmicentral.com

Before reading this article the word, “unlikely,” jumped right out at me. Because -at least to my admittedly whitey white butt-  that didn’t seem unlikely at all. Many indigenous cultures in what is now the United States, throughout the Americas, and Polynesia have a tradition of revering or making a special place in society for those with “Two-Spirits.”

What a tragedy that this beautiful tradition of respect, understanding, and acceptance became a casualty of white-washing. ..And how encouraging it is to see it coming back.