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IndigeQueerness: A Navajo Lens on LGBTQ2S+ Kinship
Spurlock Museum of World Cultures
600 S. Gregory St.
Urbana, Illinois 61801
(217) 333-2360
Category
Hours
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The Native American House and the Gender & Sexuality Resource Center at Illinois invite you to join us for programs and activities that highlight how Indigenous knowledge systems have long embraced expansive understandings of gender and sexuality, while celebrating the enduring presence of Indigiqueer and Two-Spirit communities.
In Navajo culture, queer kin have been respected members of our society and have played key roles in our cultural ways. While these cultural teachings have sometimes been complicated by Western thought and the adoption of LGBTQ2S+ terms in the English language, there remains a rooted relationship to understanding queer inclusion in our Indigeneity. While some structures in Navajo culture perpetuate a gender binary in a Western sense, much can be learned from Navajo epistemologies and being a good relative to our LGBTQ2S+ kin.
About the speaker: Byron Tsabetsaye belongs to the Diné (Navajo) and Shiwi (Zuni) people. He identifies as IndigeQueer (Indigenous + Queer) which he describes as a state of being that blends cultural and queer identity. Byron serves as the Tribal Engagement Liaison with the office of Native American Advancement & Tribal Engagement at the University of Arizona. He is also a PhD student studying higher education with a focus on American Indian higher education at the U of A.