ABSTRACT
The suicides, the violence, the missing persons and the murders are all directly related to a person’s gender identity”. An examination of Two Spirit people within various indigenous groups provides teachers new opportunities to uncover and simultaneously complicate the gender element, which may lead students and teachers toward a more nuanced understanding of social education. Less recent examples from history also demonstrate physical violence enacted toward members of the various lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. Some of these historical incidents include first contact between European explorers and the indigenous people living in the “New World,” the experiences of gay and lesbian soldiers serving in the military during times of war, the plight of gay prisoners of war during the Holocaust and the violent death of college student Matthew Shepard on October 12, 1998. On multiple levels, it represents difficult knowledge for students and teachers who identify as gay or lesbian, especially those who also identify as black.
