Gwen Araujo

Gwen Araujo

Gwen is sad story of transphobia. According to Merriam-Webster, Transphobia is described as ": irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against transgender people". Gwen Araujo was a transgender woman who was brutally murdered in 2002 at the young age of 17. However, Gwen was not just a transgender woman. Gwen was also a Latina, a loving sister, a daughter, and a friend. Although this story is heartbreaking, it is even more heartbreaking to know that Gwen is not the only victim of brutal transphobia. According to Stonewall.org/uk, "Two in five trans people have experienced a hate crime or incident because of their gender identity in the last 12 months", "Nearly half (42 per cent) of trans people are not living permanently in their preferred gender role stated they are prevented from doing so because they fear it might threaten their employment status" resulting in "Nearly half (48 per cent) of trans people under 26 said they had attempted suicide, and 30 per cent said they had done so in the past year, while 59 per cent said they had at least considered doing so". 
Hearing these facts can be alarming. One can easily question what we can do to help the situation. A great option can be to be an ally. An ally is "a person who is a member of the dominant group who works to end oppression in his or her own personal and professional life by supporting and advocating with the oppressed population" (University of Illinois Springfield, 2019). In both my personal and professional life I am proud to say that I am an ally. In my personal life, my values are that everyone deserves the same rights no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity. In my professional life, I work at an agency that treats individuals with respect and offers quality health services to LGBT individuals. Through the transformation that my agency did, I learned alot. I learned that being LGBT inclusive did not just mean to extend your services to the LGBT population. Being LGBT inclusive means sensitivity training agency wide, changes in patient forms, amendments in patient rights and responsibilities, and training staff to provide relevant services to the community. Some of the changes we made was train the entire agency (200+ employees) on LGBT basics, such as definitions, once a month. We received technical assitance from the Fenway institute to transform our center and we were provided the right tools necessary to do so. We also took a look at all our patient forms and added field such as "preferred name", "preferred pronoun", "name assigned at birth", etc. We also amended our Patient Rights and Responsibilities to show that there would be no descrimination on the basis of sex or sexual orientation. We also trained our staff on sensitivity training because we were aware that people have their own values and that many times their values are not accepting of the LGBT community. This effort is now on its 3rd year and I am proud to mention that I have extended the training with some of our biggest partners, the Socorro Independent School District. School districts are sometimes afraid of talking about these topics so they asked me and some coworkers to train their staff and I, along with a colleage, trained every single principal and counselor in SISD and we currently offer LGBT lessons in our Mental Health curriculum for youth. 
Although there are still lots of crime and stigma sorrounding the LGBT community, I take my actions as an ally to ensure that not just me, but my inner circle remains respectful and supportive. When I met my now-husband, he was very traditional and was against the LGBT movement. However, with time, I was able to educate him enough and reduce his stigma. He now is a big advocate for his LGBT employees, which is crucial because he oversees 600+ people in his job. It starts with us.

RESOURCES:

https://www.stonewall.org.uk/cy/node/24594
https://www.uis.edu/gendersexualitystudentservices/students/ally-guide-uis/lgbt-ally-terms-and-definitions/