Week 10: Learning about Gender and Sexuality with students from the UNAM

CEMAL students and staff with the guests from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City

By Kelsey Cole

This week we had a wonderful visit from several social work students from UNAM, Latin America’s most prestigious school which is located in Mexico City. Throughout the week, we shared many insightful conversations surrounding the interconnectedness of social and political issues but the theme of the week was gender and sexuality—a topic not often covered by their school and not often discussed in Mexico.

For me, the most striking presentation of the week was the Gender and Sexuality panel on Tuesday. This diverse group was composed of two homosexuals and two people who defied the confines of typical gender roles and they each shared their life experiences and the difficulties they faced within their culture. The first speaker expressed his difficult childhood having been abandoned by his biological father and having grown up with an alcoholic step-father who beat his mother. When his mother died at the age of nine, he found work in household care. Later on, he married and has since been very happy and wishes to raise his children in a family filled with love and acceptance of difference.

The other speakers were absolutely phenomenal as well. When asked how they would react to a child’s sexual preference that was different than heterosexual, one responded that he believes that children need to have the love of their parents “because they will be encouraged to progress in society” with it. Another question asked where the LGBT movement should progress or change from this point and another speaker responded that LGBT people should search for respect and acceptance. In addition, families need to orient themselves to accept all differences and have them channel their curiosities to questions. But, in the end, she stated, we should be more worried about the negatives of neoliberalism than oppressing a group of people. My other favorite part was when she ended her viewpoint by commenting that “our mission in life is to love” and to “hook-up” essentially—that life is about interacting and why can’t we make that a healthy interaction amongst all people?