Gwen Araujo

Gwen Araujo:

 When I saw the movie of Gwen Araujo and when I read Learning from the death of Gwen Araujo it made me open my eyes to reality. This reading and movie made me feel mad and sad because according to USA it claims it’s a free country and it states we are equal in a way, but it truly isn’t. It is separated by gender, race, and sexuality.From what I understood in my history and politics class is that originally the US constitution/articles of confederation/ bill of rights was built for white people but more for male than female not any other race . As the years have passed it has changed for the better but there is still lots more progress/changes to be made. From what I understood or learned from the movie and the reading was that it all deals with money, race, sexuality, gender, religion, law, corruption, and news. With money you can live the life you dream. With corruption you can get away with bad things if you pay lots of money and know other people to help you cover your crimes. Gender, you have to fit the norms of male and female and what “ they represent”  and if you don’t you are looked as an “IT “ they dehumanize the person that’s where  Sexuality comes along the LBGTQ community.”If body fits into neither category,or crosses gender lines, it loses gender privilege and its assigned the lable “IT…”(Heindenreich, pg122).Race, whether you are, Latino, Black, Hispanic, Indian, Native. White automatically comes to my mind as “the lighter you skin the more privileges you have (but in all reality it’s mainly about white supremacy)”. Law is complicated but they are supposed to make things fair for everyone but in some cases they aren’t.  The news only follows what the most popular thing is, it shows what it wants to show and wont cover subjects most reality or they will cover it up with lies, also some people pay money to show on tv to make it public. Religion there are many different religions but if you don’t follow their beliefs and go against them you are considered a sinner etc…

I feel for Gwen Araujo because her life was very difficult. Everything that he went through and the way they killed her was just all unfair. She didn’t deserve to die like that no one does nor to be treated the way she was treated in school. Regardless of his race gender, sexuality, etc… she was still human she deserved to be happy and understood and more than anything she deserved to be respected.

The way I see life is that being a woman is so much harder than being a man. We automatically are perceived as the girl/woman to obey the man and inferior of them. We are always being criticized just by being woman in all aspects. Some Men see us women as week or the ones that need to be at home cooking, cleaning, and raising a family while the Man works and provides. Equality doesn’t exist even on works/jobs men get paid more than woman for doing the same job. Also for being a different race other than White. If you are not White don’t get much pay. The White people get richer and we stay poor or stay in living class. Other cases other races have to work much harder to wet where they are at, and they have it much easier than the rest of us. As stated in the story  on the 2^nd paragraph talks about wage and race. Depending on your race you get paid a certain %  but none are equal (Heindenreich, pg.126). Some think that we are devils /Sextual objects that we deserve what happens to us just by the way we dress to present ourselves.  I can understand to a certain extent everything she was going through. When she finally told her mom she wanted to transition. She was going through all the struggles a woman goes through daily basis, plus her being biologically male and fearing for her life. Back in her day years ago the world wasn’t as accepting of The LGBTQ community as it is today. She was already struggling with her family accepting her, plus school, society.

In this story and movie of Gwen I noticed all these factors that affected the way the LGBTQ community is perceived and treated, but not only that all other races as well. I will try my best to explain how some of these factors affected Gwen Araujo. As the story goes Eddie Araujo was transgender biologically, he was male but he identified as a woman and preferred to be called Gwen. When she was growing up she had a hard time fitting in with her family, school, church. She loved putting on makeup and liked dressing up feminine. The family knew something seemed odd, but no one really wanted to accept and still had hope he was not gay or transsexual. They wanted to be a “normal/ perfect family”. Another thing that we saw in the movie was that being a Latina or in the Latino family they went to Church and Gwen never felt like she fit and she felt God and church didn’t accept her. In the movie and in the readings we can see that the struggled in school Gwen didn’t really had any guy friends and was always hanging out with the girls. Gwen was bullied by the guys at school. The school had a problem with accepting her as well. As the reading talked about “Gwen did not droop out of school she was pushed out by an administration that supported a harassing climate and that could not understand the necessity of using a bathroom” (Heindenreich, pg.129)& “Her mother asked for bathroom modifications .The school refused. Students began to harass her.” (Heindenreich,pg118). And the movie I saw that the mom wanted for Gwen to go to school when he didn’t want to and they got into an argument. When Gwen walks away the younger brother is in the room and tells the mom “How can you want her to go to school when the staff doesn’t even let her use the restroom and kids threaten her.”.  The night she was murdered by the reading and by the few parts that were able to see on the film was that she was killed by 3 of his guy friends. They had found out she was biologically male and because she had had love relationship with them, they felt betrayed and killed her. The beat her up, choked her, and then buried her and put heavy rock on top of her body (disfiguring parts of her body) so the animals couldn’t get her out then they went to go have breakfast like nothing ever happened.  Once they guys were found they hired and attorney. In the movie and article, we see that in their defense it was Gwen’s fault because she didn’t tell them she was transsexual. Also, in the night she was killed they tried to judge her by the clothes she was wearing. It still doesn’t give them the right to kill a person just because someone didn’t tell their truth. I feel for Gwen because what is she would have told them the truth since the beginning or before having sex with them. Her life was still at risk. Another thing was that when she died she received very little (news) attention and the very little news that came out many people were protesting and yelling mean things. But what caught my attention was that after her death another white transgender person was killed they made the news public and he got good support whole Gwen being a Latina didn’t. The only way Gwen when public was because her mom started a movement to advocate fot the LGBT community or transgender community.

Citation:

Linda Heindenreich. Learning from the death of Gwen Araujo? Transphobic Racial Subordination and Qeer Latina Survival in the Twenty First Century

Agnieszka Holland and starring J. D. Pardo, Mercedes Ruehl, and Avan Jogia. A girl like me (2006)