Indigenizing Love, A Toolkit for Native Youth to Build Inclusion

In response to requests from American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) youth, Western States Center partnered with the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, the Center for Native American Youth, and Native Youth Leadership Alliance to develop a resource toolkit for and with young Native leaders. This toolkit is written to support Native youth, tribal communities, Two-Spirit and Native LGBTQIA+ collectives, community leaders, and partners who intend to better understand and support our Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities.

We visited with Native youth in roundtable discussions, conferences, and health and wellness meetings, where we heard time and again that building support for Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ community members continues to be a priority across Indian Country. More specifically, Native youth have asked for more resources on relationship building, caretaking, and inclusion of the TwoSpirit community. They want to better understand the important and diverse ways that Two-Spirit relatives and community members have sustained practices of making relations in spite of and beyond settler colonial violence. In other words, we developed this resource toolkit to support everyone working to Indigenize Love.