Two Spirits Will Premiere In Early 2009

The film is currently in post-production and will premiere early in 2009. Production partners are actively seeking broadcast distribution and theatrical release. Two Spirits will be screened at numerous LGBT, Native American, human-rights, and general-interest film festivals throughout the U.S. and internationally. After broadcast and film-festival release, the film will be made available on this website, and through a network of outreach partner organizations.

Fred Martinez

Two Spirits tells a nuanced story of what it means to be poor, transgendered, and Navajo, and examines the lives of Fred Martinez, his friends, family, the police, and those in the larger community who were most affected by his murder.

The documentary explores Fred’s short and compelling life, his terrible death, and his enduring legacy—one that has led to renewed resolve by many people of the several cultures of the Four Corners region not only to accept diversity, but to honor it, and to help ensure that people are free to express the totality of who they are. Two Spirits demonstrates that we have much to gain from making our communities safe for people like Fred Martinez and it poses the question asked by his grieving mother, “Why are people killed for being who they are?”

The narrative is grounded in the events foreshadowing the murder, the horrible reality of what happened on a night when one boy bludgeoned another with a large rock, then bragged to friends that he had "bug-smashed a fag," and the police work that brought the killer to justice. But the larger ambition of Two Spirits is to reach beyond an account of violence and hatred to explore issues of gender, sexuality, and spirituality in compelling ways.

When, in adolescence, Fred began to express himself in newly feminine ways, his mother and other members of his family understood who Fred was based on their traditional Navajo beliefs. They felt pride in his being gifted with a deep understanding of the duality of the human experience, believing that, as a nadleeh, he would live a rich and expressive life. Fred self-identified as a gay male and commonly used the name Fred, as well as "F.C." He also expressed a wonderfully feminine aspect of his truest self in the way he dressed and presented himself, and sometimes wanted to be called Beyoncé, in honor of his favorite singer. Since the concept of nadleeh transcends limited categorization, it is likely that had Fred lived, he would have continued to describe himself as nadleeh —a spiritual, sexual, and gender identity that would have continued to provide him with a dignified sense of his history and a hopeful view of his future.

Traitional American Values

The national dialogue about gender and sexuality is rising to a crescendo and the perspective of Native two-spirited people contributes breakthrough insight to the discussion—a perspective that transcends the limits and inflexibility of the ideas and beliefs that arrived with the first Europeans.

The story of Two Spirits includes forays into the history of Native two-spirited people and the spectrum of gender expression and sexual identity that has long been seen as a healthy part of many of the indigenous cultures of North America, and of Navajo culture, in particular. When a culture values the balance of the masculine and feminine as a way of maintaining sacred order, someone who is gifted with a more complex and nuanced understanding of both the masculine and feminine is seen as making a valuable contribution to the whole, and is treated with respect, even reverence.

 Wesley Thomas, the foremost expert on the subject of the Navajo nadleeh tradition, describes the four genders recognized by the Navajo. The first is the feminine woman. The second is the masculine man. The third is the male-bodied person who has a feminine essence—nadleeh. The fourth is the female-bodied person who has a masculine essence—dilbaa.

Parents and elders support children in becoming fully who they are, and, in adolescence, the ceremony that marks entry into life as an adult is different for each gender. Quite wonderfully, a nadleeh and dilbaa adolescent receives a combination of the masculine and feminine ceremonies, as they take on important cultural and spiritual roles in the community including serving as healers, ambassadors, teachers, matchmakers, parents to orphaned children, and mediators of disputes.

Navajo beliefs about multiple genders are anchored in the cosmology of the culture, which prizes the balance of the feminine and masculine above all else. It is this balance that maintains sacred order, so it is natural for traditional Navajos to treat those who possess a more nuanced understanding of gender and sexuality with reverence and respect. Historic photographs and contemporary footage illustrate the rich nadleeh tradition, as well as the horrible genocide and more subtle subjugation that have all but eradicated it over time.

The term “two-spirits” was created in recent decades as a way to explain the concept in a unified way in the English language. Each tribe with this tradition has a different name for it and unique ways to define and describe the concept. The film examines traditional beliefs about the special gifts of insight and balance two-spirited people are thought to possess, and the reverence and respect afforded to their "otherness" and its sacred role in those Native societies.

Nature provides a variety of people who do not fit within narrowly defined categories of gender and sexuality, including those who are born intersexed. Perhaps, as science and medicine continue to explore this reality, we can adjust our thinking about gender and sexuality by looking to spiritual and cultural perspectives that represent the most traditional of American values.

Two Halves of the Whole

Tribal drums pound out this compelling story's rhythms and its flavors are fry-bread and mutton stew, drive-through burgers and Dr. Pepper. It's a very contemporary story but it also has ties to the ancient myth of Turquoise Boy and White Shell Girl, the hermaphroditic twins who helped the Navajos understand that male and female are the essential halves of the whole.

The story follows the connection between the ancient past and the modern world, and the traditions that remain vitally important, even as contemporary American culture permeates the lives of families who leave "the Rez" to live in nearby towns. The narrative explores a violent homicide, the tribal beliefs of Native peoples surrounding the death, and the link between the murdered boy and the place in which he lived.

Fred was a typical American teenager living in a small town--a boy steeped in popular culture and full of dreams about the life he wanted to live out in the larger world. Fred was also a Navajo who was drawn to the spiritual traditions of his own culture as well as the spirituality of the Native American Church. He loved the beauties of Monument Valley, and wanted to collect eagle feathers with which to make ceremonial fans. Fred felt he was destined for great things and told his friends he was sure he would appear in Teen People magazine one day, a hope that became sadly prophetic when an article about his murder did appear.

One Who Is Transformed

Nadleeh is translated as “one who is transformed," and as the film traces the ramifications of a murder in the lives of those most affected, it points to the larger meaning of this event within the society in which it took place and offers an opportunity to approach ideas and beliefs about gender and sexuality in ways that transform understanding.

The Setting of the Film

The high-desert town of Cortez is situated in the Four Corners area of the American Southwest—the region surrounding the point where the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet—a culturally diverse place where a sometimes confrontational intersection of white, Hispanic, and Navajo and Ute cultures occurs.

Highlighting the stunning topography and stark cultural contrasts of the Four Corners region, the film features compelling interviews with Fred’s mother, family, friends, members of the community, reporters, the police officers who investigated his murder, and activists from around the nation who came to Cortez in the aftermath of the murder—all of them searching in retrospect for deeper answers to the unconscionable hate-crime, exploring in diverse and illuminating ways the short life and legacy of a two-spirit boy who comfortably walked the paths of both the masculine and feminine.

The film captures the unique sights and sounds of a region where distinct cultures intersect; the showy spectacle of the annual rodeo weekend in Cortez—the traveling carnival Fred loved to attend each year, the powder-dry dust always in the air, and the litter-strewn canyon where his body was found.

In Memory

The grave of Fred Martinez has been identified with a small metal marker that was intended to be temporary from the time he was buried in 2001. Fred's family has not been able to afford a headstone, but his brothers designed a modest monument they hoped could someday honor his memory and bring dignity to his final resting place, and the funding for the gravestone has been added to grant requests made by the Fred Martinez Project in order to fulfill this wish. When the gravestone is prepared, a ceremony honoring Fred will be held with family, friends, and the activists who assisted his family in attendance.

Fred's mother Pauline Mitchell visits the grave with such regularity that two depressions can be seen where she kneels to talk to him in Navajo and English. She leaves little gifts for Fred, including the plastic key chains he liked to collect, one of which reads, Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

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