Abstract

The foundational concepts of traditional Aztec metaphysics can benefit relations between LGBT students and teachers and their heterosexual peers. Because LGBT students and teachers suffer academic grievances at rates which their straight colleagues do not, they are in need of sound mechanisms for redress. The ethical stances implicit in the Aztec ontological simple teotl and the three motion-changes through which it acts – olin, malinalli, and nepantla – offer novel ways of approaching positive socialization between groups with differing social qualities and perceptions. Specifically, the activity of the perpetually processive teotl through the ‘twistedness’ of malinalli promises both respect for difference and the recognition that all individuals are inhabitants of a greater cosmos. The Aztecs routinely conceived of malinalli as those actions which have profound transformative and productive powers. Malinalli rituals as characterized through traditional Aztec metaphors can serve as tools for classroom interaction which bridge the social divide between sexual minorities and the heterosexual majority.