The story of Gwen Araujo is a powerful story about a journey
through society, where you are labelled as the “black sheep”. It’s a story that
is usually never seen through popular forms of media such as movie theaters or
even in the paper. Much less there is little to no coverage if they are of a different
ethnicity. I do feel partially ashamed that I did not know the story of Gwen
Araujo, before watching the documentary. I would say that I am a high advocate
for the LGBTQ community, but I do feel ashamed that I did not know about this
story. It coincides with my culture and my beliefs.
Growing up I experienced a lot of gender specific
stereotypes. I grew up thinking that baby boys were identified with the color
blue and girls were identified with the color pink. Being raised in a heavily
influenced Hispanic family, the girls in our family were raised to be extremely
feminine. The women were expected to wear dresses or pretty looking clothing,
the hair is always supposed to be kept tidy (wearing in pulled up, would be
considered trashy). The women were also expected to be the ones who stayed at
home and cooked ALL the meals, cleaned everyone’s messes, and then grow old
enough to have babies and raise the children. This is represented in the Gwen Araujo
documentary. So I grew up with these
stereotypical gender roles in my mind thinking this is perfectly okay. It wasn’t
until high school that I really started to see the world in a different view. I
was able to meet people who didn’t particularly identify with another gender.
They were kind-hearted with feelings and emotions. Although they were able to
act normally among the group of friends, it never really occurred to me the daily
challenges they might face. My representation for the LGBTQ community is new, but
growing up it wasn’t taught to me that there was more to gender beyond “boy”
and “girl” label. As I continue to grow up in the world, I try to make sure
that I am as respectful as possible to anything people identify as. I try to
keep myself open minded towards other peoples emotions and feelings. I am a
huge advocate for genderless restrooms, I try to advocate the vote for
genderless restrooms in the workplace, schools, and shopping centers. It is the
least I can do, but I do eventually plan on expanding advocating for genderless
labels. I have also decided that when I plan to have a baby in the future, that
I wanted to have a gender reveal party, and the colors I would use was yellow.
I wouldn’t even reveal the gender, it would be more of a celebration of life
party.
There is a specific memory that I will never forget at UTEP.
It was raining really hard at UTEP one day, and I had to run across campus to
get to class. I stupidly had forgot my umbrella and my jacket that day, so I
was running across campus with a book above my head. I was soaked and only half
way there, as I was running someone ran up next to me and shared their jacket
and their umbrella with me. They didn’t say their name they just said, “Here we
can run together, where are running too?” We ended up running together through
the rain, to the same building. As we were getting ready to walk into the
building I looked at their face and she was wearing the prettiest make-up and a
beautiful wig. She eventually told me her name was Rachel, and we parted ways.
I thought it was the sweetest gesture she did for me. Especially because on my
first part of the run, no one was offering a umbrella and she went out of her
way to help me. She was super sweet and I wish I could do more to thank her. I
will never forget the memory of how she helped me. It encourages me to want to
be more to helpful to the LGBTQ community.
I want to share this video with you. Warning it will make
you cry, I cried, it’s a step towards teaching our children to break the gender
placed roles.
References
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