Diné Equality
On the Navajo Nation reservation, tribal member Alray Nelson has for years been campaigning for the right to marry his male partner. But current Navajo law, despite the tribe’s own history of acceptance, bans same-sex marriage.
According to Nelson’s organization Diné Equality, a nonprofit advocating for LGBTQ rights within the Navajo Nation and broader Indian Country, only thirty-five indigenous communities of the more than 550 federally recognized tribes in the United States recognize same-sex marriage. This lack of tolerance not only flies in the face of the traditional indigenous values—it threatens tribal sovereignty in a world that is fast evolving on these issues.
Only thirty-five indigenous communities of the more than 550 federally recognized tribes in the United States recognize same-sex marriage.
During the 1980s, when I was editor of The Circle newspaper in Minneapolis, we ran a cover story on HIV and AIDS in Indian Country. I was shocked to learn that gay Indian men were still being treated as a health threat to their own tribal communities. They were regularly denied health services or outed as HIV-positive by health-care providers. Some were shunned by their tribe or even banished. Worse, many deceased Indians were denied the right to be buried in their homeland simply because their deaths were AIDS-related.
Ironically, tribal homophobia ignores a history of indigenous social values. Before First Contact, tribal historians and anthropologists say, tribes embraced their gender-nonconforming members. Depending on the tribe, many were called “Two-Spirited.” They fully participated in community ceremonies, social events, and political affairs.
So where did tribes go wrong and begin marginalizing these once endeared members?
Part of what happened involves the onslaught of Western colonization, and the disease and displacement it meant for American Indians. Our values, such the acceptance of Two-Spirited Indians, eroded over time, replaced with the values of our colonizers who enslaved Africans, granted few rights to women, and coerced American Indians into giving away their homelands.
And of course, Puritanical values instilled contempt among Indians for anyone who today might be called queer.
Puritanical values instilled contempt among Indians for anyone who today might be called queer.
In cities, where American Indians are more exposed to an evolving dominant culture, tolerance and support among urban tribal members for LGBTQ Indians has blossomed. There are health and social support resources for those living with HIV and AIDS. There are even women drum groups, which is unheard of and not accepted within reservation communities—despite the fact that many tribes are traditionally matriarchal.
But in often-isolated reservation communities, as throughout rural America, bigoted attitudes still flourish. And this erasure of American Indian values, which honor people of all identities, continues to endanger our already fragile sovereignty.
If tribes do not come around and follow suit with federal laws ensuring rights to LGBTQ people, the federal government could trample on tribal sovereignty—withholding federal funds for health care, housing, employment, and other critical services until they comply. In 2006, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma voted to disenroll Freedman members—the descendants of black slaves who had been accepted into Cherokee families. It took threats and economic sanctions from the federal agencies, and a ruling from U.S. District Federal Court, for the tribe to reverse its position.
American Indian communities, as the original inhabitants of this land, have an absolute right to self-governance. But they must also create the space to act on their own cultural values when enforcing that authority.
American Indian communities, have an absolute right to self-governance. But they must also create the space to act on their own cultural values when enforcing that authority.
If I were a tribal council member who denied full rights such as marriage to LGBTQ community members—as happened with the Navajo Nation—I would have ask myself: Is putting internalized hate over traditional values worth dismantling our sovereignty, our very way of life?
But the optimist in me says it won’t come to this.
I have witnessed a swell of interest in traditional values happening within my own tribe. As tribes continue to recover and reclaim our languages and ceremonies that were once banned, as we throw off Western values and attitudes, there is a noticeable change. We are recognizing that hate never had a place during the days of who we once were as a people. We are rediscovering our past, a past that will once again inform our present and our future.