De Leon said her 16-year-old niece killed herself in 2015 after being harassed about her sexual orientation.

"It really hurt me and it broke my heart because she was so young and she was being bullied" by family members and classmates, she said.

Mousseaux said community members learned she was dating and living with De Leon in 2006, when she was working as a police officer and living in Kyle. The couple left the reservation after being "gay bashed" that year but returned in 2007 and Mousseaux rejoined the police force. After being attacked in 2009, they fled again out of fear for their own safety and that of their children, even if it meant leaving their relatives and home behind.

"We chose to leave and not address anything. And there was no protections in place, there was no recourse," Mousseaux said. "We just decided to not shake the boat, we left."

Mousseaux said her next step is to encourage the OST council to pass LGBT hate crime legislation modeled after the federal Matthew Shepard Act, which made crimes motivated by gender and sexual orientation a hate crime.

"We are all human beings and we do have another generation coming up and we want that hate to stop. We don't want to have hatred breeding hatred," she said.