Two Spirits

Fred Martinez was a Navajo boy who was also a girl. In an earlier era, he would have been revered. Instead, he was murdered.

Fred Martinez was a Navajo youth slain at the age of 16 by a man who bragged to his friends that he 'bug-smashed a fag'. But Fred was part of an honored Navajo tradition - the 'nadleeh', or 'two-spirit', who possesses a balance of masculine and feminine traits.