It’s the last day of Pride Month, a celebration of the LGBTQ+ community, and an Arizona trailblazing Diné jurist — who is two-spirit — reflected on her uniquely Indigenous identity in a recent conversation with the nonprofit Advance Native Political Leadership.
Born in Lupton on the Navajo Nation, Maricopa County’s first Indigenous justice of the peace, Deborah Ann Begay, has been ruling out of the Moon Valley courthouse in north Phoenix since 2020.
The U.S. Navy veteran attended the University of California, Berkeley — then law school at Arizona State University. She’s a single parent who identifies as two-spirit — basically someone who embodies the male and female spirit.
“People would go to them because they understood both sides,” said Begay, explaining it’s often a title bestowed upon those who resolve disputes in the pursuit of “restorative justice.” Being two-spirit helps Begay empathize, and her three children are also a source of inspiration.
“They always kind of out me, because I’ll go to a parent meeting or something and they’ll say, ‘Daddy, daddy,’” she elaborated. “And all the other mothers will look around and look for the male dad, and it ends up being me so that automatically starts a conversation that I sort of have to step into and educate.”
But Begay admitted the best part of her job is officiating marriages across Maricopa County, especially for same-sex couples.
“Doing the ceremony, you’re performing a like professional function, but yet you’re kind of included in their private lives,” she added. “And that’s even more so when I would get invited to their personal homes.”
Despite the U.S. Supreme Court legalizing those unions in a 2015 landmark decision, they are still not recognized by the Navajo Nation. Two decades ago, the Diné Marriage Act defined the state of matrimony as being only between man and woman — though there’s been recent pushback to repeal that law.
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