Breathe
By Sofia Guadarrama
Reader, reader, imagine you are walking down the street and suddenly someone throws a rotten egg at you and (if you are a man) they yell "Damn straight man! or (if you are a woman) "Fucking cisgender woman!
You avoid confrontation and continue on your way. Then someone empties a bucket full of manure into you. People laugh. Mockers approach. The or point at you. Soon a shower of garbage stops him in his tracks. The laughter turns into shouts of hatred. There is nowhere to move. There are only three ways out of there:
1. Confronting the aggressors.
2. Evading aggressors.
3. Trying to convince aggressors that there is nothing wrong with being a heterosexual cisgender white woman or white cisgender man.
Of course there's nothing wrong with that, but those people just don't get it. They are all transgender. Of course, this must cause laughter to many readers. The world upside down.
I understand: as humanity we tend to be very selfish and things only hurt us when they affect us directly or indirectly. Unfortunately, only if we have a child with a disability do we become activists. Only when a family member is kidnapped do we take to the streets to demonstrate. You have to be trans to understand the discrimination you suffer. And so on and so forth. The list is very long.
Discrimination is the bullying of adults who think they have matured. Surprise, maturity does not always come, even if you are the president of the United States or the richest man in the world.
Discrimination is the gateway to arrogance, hatred, polarization and hate crimes.
In the United States, slavery was legally abolished in 1865, but racial discrimination and segregation continued until the middle of the 20th century. It was not until the 1950s and 1960s that movements led by figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks succeeded in reducing racial discrimination, although laws were created in favor of black men and women.
Today, in the United States, after Barack Obama's presidency, almost no one dares to openly discriminate against black people.
In Mexico, with the arrival of MORENA to power and López Obrador's repetitive discourse of no to classism and racism, it is frowned upon for someone to say "indio" to an indigenous Oaxacan, as was still heard so much in the 1980s.
But people need someone to hate. They need to pour out their hatred on someone else. To take out their frustrations. And they will always look for someone to take it out on. And if someone in power gives them permission, with greater freedom they will do it.
The straight white male fist that inhabits the White House has just signed an executive order entitled "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports," which also bans trans women from entering women's restrooms. He also ordered to erase the words transgender or transsexual in contracts and social networks of federal agencies in the United States. Therefore, since a few days ago, including media outlets in the United States, no longer refer to transgender women, but to "men dressed as women" and "men who want to be women".
In the previous six-year term we had one of the greatest advances in diversity in politics: the MORENA party nominated two transgender women, María Clemente García and Salma Luévano Luna.
During the entire six-year term, the vast majority of journalists specified "the trans deputy", when the story was not related to the issue of transsexuality.
Just by pointing out the gender identity of the congresswoman, they showed their transphobia. It was so easy to say: "Congresswoman María Clemente García".
I never heard or read them refer to "the straight female candidate" or "the cisgender governor."
Some were openly transphobic, such as Marco Levario Turcott, when he called her "a grotesque and ignorant trans, grunts like an ape". I never defended the positions or behavior of Congresswoman Maria Clemente Garcia, but I defended and will defend to the end her right not to be singled out and discriminated against because of her gender identity. Her intimate life is one thing and her political stance and lack of education is quite another.
