Sexualidad.

Part 1

About a week ago, I had a long talk with my host mom about my gender identity. After she had heard my friends calling me 'Lucas,' there were some questions, I think, that needed to be sorted out. For the first week here, my family was calling me "Laura" because that is my birth-name and is, thus, written on all of my documentation. I was really nervous about having this talk because, although I like my host family, I really don't know them that well and did not know how they would react. Talking about my gender identity even in the States makes me nervous enough.

I told her that I wanted to talk to her and she was very receptive. I explained that I knew she had heard my friends call me a different name and that in the States I identify as something different. Her response was awesome. She said she was confused, but also really open to whatever I identified as. She asked if I wanted her to use male pronouns and call me Lucas and I said yes. She asked some questions and I tried to explain the best I could in Spanish. All in all it went really well. Everyone in the family calls me Lucas now and uses male pronouns and I am just really surprised and relieved by how amazing they have treated me.

In the last week, I feel like I have been able to adjust so much better to living in Cochabamba. I am a lot more open to my family and much more comfortable around the house. So much has changed just from that talk. Realizing this has made me reflect a lot on my life outside of Bolivia. I think so much of me has been lost and hidden previous to accepting my gender identity. Not until the last few months have I really been able to feel like a real person and I think that change has been reflected in almost all of my relationships with other people and with myself. Being here in Bolivia is certainly opening windows into parts of myself that I had been ignoring for a long time.

Part 2


Several days this week I have accompanied my host organization (Institute for Human Development) to various middle schools in rural parts of Cochabamba to present sexual health work shops. These workshops are fascinating. The first day, I walked into a room in a middle school about 40 minutes outside of Cochabamba proper and all of the 11-year-old girls started screaming (I passed pretty well as a boy that day). The workshops include discussion about what is sex, changes to bodies during puberty, and when and how healthy relationships function. The IDH staff does an amazing job of making the kids comfortable with the subject and being both professional and friendly.

Sex Ed - Complete with puppets and costumes!

Typical Middle School Classroom

On the way to one of the Campos, the neighborhoods were lined with pro-Evo graffiti and advertisements. Exactly the opposite of the city. 

Some of my reflections on the workshops are:

• 11-year-olds in the rural outskirts of Cochabamba are receiving more sex education than I ever had in a suburban city in the United States. 
• The workshops are entirely heteronormative. IDH's mission relates to prevention of AIDS/HIV which, obviously, is transmittable through more than heterosexual sex. So, it's unfortunate that there isn't at least some discussion of the various kinds of sexual activity. Sexual identity is defined as "male" or "female" which, again, is unfortunate for any kid like me sitting in the class who probably hears that and feels more like shit about themselves than they did before IDH showed up *sigh*
• Every session always includes some kid asking if I am a boy or a girl. Normally I answer by saying, "I identify as a boy" and leaving it at that. But today one of the kids asked an IDH staff member and he said I was a girl. I decided I might as well do some education for everyone involved and jumped in and said, "No, yo identifico como un chico. Entonces, usa él y los pronombres masculinas." Surprisingly, the kids were super receptive. They barely blinked an eye and continued on with their conversations. The other staff member however seemed pretty confused (even though I introduced myself as Lucas originally and use only masculine adjectives to describe myself) and even showed me to the girls' bathroom when I asked where the bathroom was (which I politely declined). 

Part 3


With all of this discussion of sexuality, I have also decided to make my big summer project based on sex and gender. After talking with several people at IDH, I decided to commit to make a documentary about the Trans* community in Cochabamba. I am working with Oscar, my direct boss in Communications at IDH, to film interviews with a lot of different people in the Trans* community. I am also going to the Pride march on June 30 to film. Tomorrow I have a meeting with a prominent Trans* activist here to talk more about logistics. The film is going to address discrimination in the health care system and discrimination at the societal level against Trans* individuals. I will surely be posting much more about it as the project develops!