TWO SPIRITS interweaves the tragic story of a mother’s loss of her son with a revealing look at a time when the world wasn't simply divided into male and female and many Native American cultures held places of honor for people of integrated genders.

Fred Martinez was a nadleehi, a male-bodied person with a feminine nature, a special gift according to his ancient Navajo culture.  The place where two discriminations meet is a dangerous place to live, and Fred became one of the youngest hate-crime victims in modern history when he was brutally murdered at sixteen.  Between tradition and controversy, sex and spirit, and freedom and fear, lies the truth - the bravest choice you can make is to be yourself.

The variations of Human Sexuality are great, many cultural and spiritual beliefs, such as multiple genders, are understood by science and honored in many regions of the world.

Gary King was the Bicultural Arts Program Coordinator and an instructor at Soaring Eagle Native American Survival School in Northern Wisconsin.  In 1972, the American Indian Movement became involved with schools, taught by Traditional factions of many tribes to enable their survival.  Indian children had for many years been stolen from their families and placed in schools run by Christian churches with the expressed purpose of ending their language and beliefs.  Ending their culture.  Most of those children suffered abuse.  Their language is Important to the understanding of their culture, values are changed when they are translated using “Christian English.”  Years of struggle have led to Tribal Education Systems (1979) and the beginning in 1994 of the Onieda Turtle School.  By 2000 the Onieda Nation was able to evict the Norbertine Priests and close St. Francis.

American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That henceforth / On and after August 11, 1978, /

it shall be the policy of the United States to protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express and exercise the traditional religions of the American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiians, including but not limited to access to sites, use and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonials and traditional rites.

The highest suicide rates are amongst Native American and Gay Youth.  These two groups have been tormented and told to change who they are.  These children are not loved when told they are sinners, that they are not good enough, that they would be better off dead.   Gary has been a teacher, an advocate in programs on Domestic Violence, a facilitator for LBGT youth and is Director of the Colorado Springs chapter of FFRF. 

The Freedom From Religion Foundation stands for the Constitutional Freedom of Religion, Creed or Belief as well as the Freedom not to believe, endowed to each individual as Our First in the Bill of Rights.  The Foundation believes that Freedom is not possible without the basic Freedom from religion being imposed by another.  When the beliefs of one persons cultural and spiritual identity is made to comply, by law, with the religions of the majority, this is a transgress, a disregard, and tramples on the Constitutional rights of that person.