My body and my spirit took care of me homelessness, violence, and resilience among American Indian two-spirit men

Abstract

Public and scientific discourse on health disparities often fails to consider American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIAN or "Natives"), especially those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (hereafter referred to as "twospirit"). Two-spirit Native men who are living on the streets or in unstable housing are even further marginalized. The invisibility of Native men's health, in general, and two-spirit men's health, in particular, stems from their existence as a people in a colonial nation state that has endured a succession of traumatic assaults on their land, homes, bodies, minds, and spirits. As Warren (1993, cited in Smitha, 1998: 17) noted, "Dysfunctional systems are often maintained through systematic denial, a failure or inability to see the reality of a situation. This denial need not be conscious, intentional, or malicious; it only needs to be pervasive to be effective".