Growing up on a Mexican-American household I
encountered different feelings and understandings about gender and sexuality. I
grew up expecting to play with dolls since I am a female and my brothers were
to play with their cars since they are males. My mother, my brothers and I
lived with my grandparents for some years so we had to obey their rules.
Therefore, we did as they expected, for example, if one of my brothers would
play with Barbie’s with us, they would be in trouble since my grandpa would say:
“esos juguetes no son de ninos si juega con munecas se va hacer nina” so I had
that mentality that girls played with “girl” toys and boys with “boy” toys. My
grandparents would always emphasize that our religion which was Catholic at
that time did not allowed us to support the “gay” community since according to
the bible and God that was not normal nor acceptable. I was told and taught that men were created
to marry women and women were to marry men because it was the right thing.
On
the other hand, my mom would always tell us that regarding a person’s gender
preference we still had to respect them and not judge them. ”A human is a human
no matter what”- were my mother’s words. She was not allowed to tell us the
opposite from my grandparents since we were under their roof and under their
rules. So she couldn’t go against them because of respect. It wasn’t until we
moved out of our grandparents’ house and everything changed. My mother gave us
the opportunity to express ourselves through the religion and beliefs we wanted
to; and that’s how I grew up ever since.
It wasn’t
until I became a mom and everything changed for me. For example, I started
noticing how clothing and even toys are almost gender labeled. Boy clothes are
all blue and dark colors and girl clothes are more pink and lighter colors. Dolls,
Barbie’s, kitchen toys, house appliances toys are on the girls’ aisle. Super heroes,
cars, tool toys, weapon toys, dinosaurs are all on the boys’ aisle. In other
words, if you are a girl are you expected
to play with the toys on that aisle and boys are expected to play with the toys around their aisle? And I became
more aware of how society somehow wants us to be either or. As stated in
Heidenreich (2006), “In the United States, racialized and gendered ideologies
construct what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman” (p.122);
which it goes back to my thinking, sadly all these ideologies we encounter have
to meet our gender somehow to determine if we are a man or a woman. I struggle
with this because I want to teach my kids how it shouldn’t matter. That if my
little girl enjoys playing with dinosaurs and makes her happy, why not let her
instead of criticize her. If my little boy likes playing with the kitchen toys,
why not let him? Sadly it is our own family who criticize the most. As a mother
I care for my kids, as a future teacher I care for my future students, I want
them to know that before seeing a person’s “gender” we have to understand that
we are humans first, as equal as everyone else in this world.
In conclusion, I believe I understood and became
more literate about the LGBTQ once I was able to express myself through the
religion of my choice, and again when I became a mother. Like I said, becoming
a mother has made me aware of how no matter what my kids think, like or do I will
ALWAYS be there for them no matter what to love and support them. Which I believe that’s how it starts,
change starts within our own selves, leading into our families. It breaks my
heart to see how many people lose their “personhood” just because they can’t
identify with either being a girl or boy. “If a body fits into neither
category, or crosses gender lines, it loses gender privilege and is assigned
the label “it”, thus signaling a loss of personhood” (p.122); as it is stated
by Heidenreich (2006). We need more support for communities like these:
References
Heidenreich, L. (2006). Learning from the Death of
Gwen Araujo?-Transphobic Racial Subordination and Queer Latina Survival in the
Twenty-First Century. Chicana/Latina
Studies, 50-86
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