The other day, I saw a post on Twitter about the Arlen case, the transgender girl that wants to be admitted in a HIgh school called Liceo 1, especially for girls in Santiago, and for some reason, I do something that i’m not used to, most of the comments are useless and they are divided by ignorants, fanatics, and a few people that try to make these last groups of people change their mind, the last time I read the comment section was a long time ago, but this time, I felt attracted by curiosity and hope, so I read the comment section below, I have read bad comments before and just passed them over, but this time was different, this time I won’t let them be, it’s important to me now because it doesn’t only hurts people that I’m related with, someone that I admire and love, it humiliates and discriminates the trans community, and humiliates the female gender by declaring that they should show a determined look. They affirm in their comments that our only wish is to be desired and held by them, they see us both women and trans people as inferior beings, we cannot look, feel, and think different from the mold that they made for us.
Arlen was brave enough to get out from that mold, and men that criticized her appearance with rude comments showed that many have not evolved. It’s clear that they have had some improvements, but they show that we are still perceived as sexual objects. I’ve read all the comments, around 150, and the comments that are about Arlen’s appearance were made by men, women made only good comments about her.
It doesn’t matter if we have short hair or long hair, black or fuchsia, or if we wear earrings or not, or if we are overweight or thin, or if we have big boobs or if we have wide hips, or thin lips, etc. It’s our personal choice if we want to wear shorts, maxi skirts, bib overalls, leather jackets, people don’t have the right to judge.
Translated by: Pedro Contreras and Sebastian Serrano