when I made the decision to be a
woman to give a complete turn to me
life to see me in the mirror and recognize
to the person who gave to see there not
I knew what I was going to do
I did not know what valeria was going to call me
I knew what my life was going to be like
I was going to do it does not come out I did not know
absolutely nothing the only thing I had
clear was that it would be a woman and do
that woman who since childhood
since I have use of reason I felt
that was and that was the only thing that
enough to make the decision to do
transit and change my life to be
a happy person realized since
I have use of reason
I knew it was a woman I knew that all
these characteristics that my parents the
school are implanting in me and that
correspond to the sex with which he had
born he was a boy and a man like
that were not compatible with me had
an internal struggle an internal conflict
because I liked the kid clothes
I do not like children’s toys either
playing soccer I did not like to play at
fights I always had with the
girls I did not like to get dirty then
I did not do any sport that will involve
dirty my clothes and then in this school
in this garden of remembrance a lot that
there was a trunk of toys in this role
of toys there was a very dress
funny because they will think the nineties
then it will be with a lot of flags and
I had a bun behind and this dress
it was my favorite toy
so I was always very anxious to
that they would remove that trunk to take out the
dress and use in
now recreational we were obviously given
Well, the teachers of the garden
they started to call my attention
mom as mom care
the child has something strange the child that does not
it’s okay this is not so normal
ice to the doctor but then nothing my mom
He was a person who always supported me
it did not put a lot of mystery
thing and then that kind of thing that did not generate
like a lot of conflict there with my mom
Being a trans girl is a very hard topic
the conflict is very big had a
immense fear that my parents me
they will reject my dad hitting me
if I told him that those things as a child to
I do not like them and they did not correspond to
me that I wanted to wear a dress but
it weighs but passing the years and already in the
adolescence evidencing the
discrimination towards the
transgender women in our country in
Bogota
watching the news on television
evidencing how when a woman
I was walking down the street the looks of
people
the whistles the behaviors towards
she was discriminated against then I told myself
myself
I do not want that for my life I do not
I want to be discriminated against, I do not want
nobody attacks me
I do not want anyone to look at me I do not want
put me in evidence
then I went into a state of denial and
I told myself
is better than them as a gay man the
rest of your life that is easier not
they’re going to accuse you so much they ‘re not going to
not point you’ll notice
if you behave like a man then
nobody is going to realize that you’re gay and
nobody is going to discriminate against you and that’s how I got
to the 20-year-old already when I got to
I was 20 years old and I realized that
more than I tried for more than I wanted
generate wellbeing
avoiding me situations of
discrimination and complex situations
there was still valeria in
hitting me there comes a time when
I did not sleep where I did not eat in which
when I had to wear that tailored suit
to go to work in the agency of
trips where I worked in that
then I was too excited about
cry when I used it and followed that
fear because I saw that women
back we were associated with the subject of
prostitution and hairdressing and I
I said I do not look like a prostitute
and I do not see myself as a stylist and I do not
because they are negative things
just that it was not what I wanted
for my life a light appeared to me
end of the tunnel and it was a program that
I will always thank you and that’s why
I appreciate this kind of spaces
called taboo Latin America
bennati or in this program there was a
program that was called essex change
and in this program they also showed to
three transgender people from here
Colombia that were dedicated to issues
totally different from what I
they thought they were the only ones where
trans women we could work
one was a very recognized architect
the other was the director of an institute
and a prestigious teacher
University of Bogota and another name
after Camilo she was a super activist
empowered and super hard when I saw
That’s what I said to myself
Pucha if they could me too
I can do the transit and I can do
something different as I told you
It was a very hard decision to make but
at the end messi
I spoke with my family with my acquaintances
I talked to a couple that I had in that
Then I explained to her that her boyfriend
I was not going to make her boyfriend anymore
but her boyfriend making his girlfriend
obviously we finish the relationship
because he was a gay man
liked the guys and nothing
I spoke with my family I took my things
ready my bags look for a place where
living there was where I started to
evidence the situations by which
we passed the transgender women the
only site that renter me being
a person who was changing a
gender to another was a piece in a
pension in the 53 with caracas
it was a terrible pension it was a piece
of three by all without a window with a
leaking on top of the bed
remember much when I already
I had to put a pot so it would not
I wet the mattress and left my house
not because my mom and my family
I would have said leave the house but
because I wanted to avoid them that
neighbors the acquaintances themselves
family members will begin to question them and
that they did not have the tools to
defend yourself and to explain what was
happening
I wanted to leave like Luis and come back as
valeria is amazing that despite
all the problems I had in my
head at that time all the
concerns all things so
complex that I was going through
a month is more important
well – being of my family and of those who
surrounded and the impact it generates in the
life of them my decision
at that time when I made the decision
works for a multinational
tourism
yesterday travel agents and I started taking
hormones
I started growing hair
I started using mascara
I started my factions started to
feminize with the process of change
hormonal and I was not fired but
I remember my boss a lot that then
He said I think the best thing is that you
you go
so you can make your change
quiet
then there was a door that
closed in that piece without work with
savings
away from my family away from my beings
dear ones
I started my whole process of change a
day I went buy women’s shoes
dresses I was dying to wear dresses
woman’s underwear makeup
enamel a dye for the hair and the
same night I moved to that site I
paint my hair paint my nails
hands the nails of the feet and to the
another day I started to leave the pension
like valeria to the street and all the clothes
of man who had the leave one
lie because I did not want to have anything
more to do with that subject
began to show the looks of the
people on the street
the guy in the car taking me away if
telling me things the discomfort of
people when I entered any
public establishment because in that
then it was very visible was a boy
that is going down to grow the hair that
he did not know how to make up that he did not know
how to dress that I did not know how
stand that I did not have
let’s say the tools that develops
during these eight years I started
look for work to touch doors to pass
resumes because the savings
they started to dig in nowhere I
hired in having the experience
I have studies and I do not
they hired because it was very visible
maybe if he had been a gay man and
I would not have said anything and it would have been
seriecito as if I had been hired
for the same if it had been a woman
lesbian measuring streets walking by
Chapinero thinking what he was going to do with
my life because I did not want to be a
charge for my parents or anything for the
style
I found a house with a
giant flag outside that was called and
that said community center the ft in
I’m going to go out and
enter young people because they want the
sectors the ft
I decided to approach and I realized that it was
a space in which there were other
people like me who are going through
my same situation and want a group of
support in that in the community center
that was called tied to the support group
to transgender people in which
we shared a group of people
transgenders we shared our
fears our concerns the
situations that are happening to us
our hormones our conflicts
relatives
this group for me at the time was my
family with wonderful people and
among them tatiana piñeros my best
friend of the soul and this group like me
gave medium tools the strength I
He opened the world a lot of things there
I started doing activism in the center
Community did not forget to volunteer
after being called by colombia
diverse an ong that works the theme
rights of people here in
Colombia and I started working with them
in a project it was my first job as
trans woman
I started working with them running
projects for free schools
discrimination and this opened me
the doors to go to work at a
district entity to the secretariat
district planning for me
the district planning secretary
it has been an amazing school it was a
school was an affirmative action in his
moment the mayor who was on duty and
It has been one of the best opportunities
that has given me life
to be in a work space to give me
to know to show others that
more I want a woman back then I am a
woman
and I am a woman like any other with
the same qualities and with the same
weaknesses that the others
when I went to the district secretariat
of planning I was the first woman
transgender in entering this entity
it is an entity where there are many
men at the time was very macho
there were architects engineers
urban civilians and it was the first
once all these people are
they met face to face with a person
with my characteristics
I still remember how people have
added by the cubicles each time
I would go through the corridor to look at
see the back where you can see where
you can see his hands, but he has some
woman’s hands the same thing happens with the
theme the bathroom was very funny because I
at the time I received more
discrimination by my parents
women who for the same men
the crouched women are going to look already
I was sitting doing chichi
how they were bending down to look if I was
urinating while standing or urinating while sitting
and at the time they were also received
complaints from the same women that because
valeri is using the women’s bathroom
that I should use the bathroom
men regardless of all that
let’s say they were things that happened in their
moment but with the daily life of the
work of these six years that I have in
the planning secretariat like that
all this was diluted
right now I ‘m telling my classmates
wonderful
I have had the best boss who has
taught everything I know and that’s why I say
that for me the secretariat of
planning born as one of the things
most fortunate that has happened to me in the
lifetime
we trans women are the
more discriminated against all acronyms
are the most discriminated and are the
more discriminated because they are the most
visible
we for more hormonal processes
that we do for more surgeries
travel the long hair the check the tail
always our morphology is going to be
obvious
we are taller we have the voice
more serious some of us have apple
ada e
the vellitos there is a set of
physical characteristics that always
they will make us evident to the
others and this visibility of our
morphology makes us the most
discriminated against the extra woman as such
women and gender women who
were born women we also live all
the time pressed by the
genera stereotypes by meeting
that aesthetic of what is feminine of
what the beauty of how nice is not
true then curvy women
long hair to the waist
the Czech the tail the dresses the
heels makeup but the case of
we the pressure is double and the
triple if a woman if the gender does not
Make up , nothing happens but if I
I will not make my office not
woman do not make up this woman or if
soon I want to use my short hair like
happened now that I have half a head
shaved this woman did not pass me a
anecdote with my mom and it was that she makes a
year I snuffed half of my head
because ‘not right now in a sling like very
relaxed from my life and my mom put the
scream in the sky lasts a week without
speak to me daughter as teo and you were to shave the
head where is your femininity where
is everything you are I do not know what
this is already evidence that is a
cultural theme
a woman who uses a shaved head
then it is not so feminine
I used to tell my mom at the time
mother is disarming problem because
I snuffed my head after all the
change that I made I put puche houses
of change the name changed my sex
in the documents change my whole life and
is bothering about a head clothes
gender stereotypes also
lead to another anecdote and it was that when
I started my transit process a
my aunt called me the kitchen
valeria come then I went I got it arrives
and she tells me they see how she wants to be a woman
came to learn to cook because with that
associate being a woman with cooking
I want us to do an exercise and
raise your hand and give me light in
the auditorium
I want you to raise your hand people
over 35 and I want it to be
look between you if this auditorium
was composed of trans women
we would have all those empty chairs
the life expectancy of women
Trans in Latin America is 35 years old
We do not exceed 35 years
you will say porsche but I am going to
tell
for this reason the inter-American court
of human rights asked the oea
to carry out forceful actions to
decrease segregation and
violation of women’s rights
trans because trans women
precisely for fulfilling those
stereotypes of beauty and by meeting
with a lot of things that society
it demands us
we are dying trans women
for reaching that of being curvaceous and
everything and for a real despair you
recognize yourself in a mirror and see yourself in
how it feels
come to extreme cases as from
inject liquid cement to oil
of cooking to intervene their bodies
those who do not do this do not have
health have no education there
dropouts are expelled from their
homes have no notions of
self-care
present high vulnerabilities that
they achieve is that trans women
health we do not reach beyond 35
years and in the case of those that are not
killed because a large percentage of
france women in Latin America are
killed by the simple fact of being
trans women as I mentioned the
gender stereotypes even though
are bad
even though they hurt us so much
women in general but
especially trans women are
there and you say valeria is talking
of gender stereotypes but it ‘s in
drawers is made up has the
bunk has fi is playing
all of what you are complaining about
and is that for me these stereotypes of
gender were the only tool that
I had to build me what was my
tool and my role model
the beauty queen the hostesses
the models the actresses and that’s how
I built myself that’s how I
built
there is a very curious thing that happens to me
I took eight years of this process
achieved some progress
they say that it happened of agache but
a very curious thing happened to me and that is that
sometimes people tell me hey valeria what
cool because you do look like a woman
and I always tell people not to
I look like a woman
I am a woman I built myself as
a woman because for me
construction that I have made in these eight
years this is not a costume is not a
I’m not imitating a woman between
all the things that I knew I was going to
sacrifice with this decision is the
theme of my dad sacrifice my dad
eight years without seeing him and took three without
talk to him because he despite being
a wonderful man that I love with everything
my heart and that I hope that in some
moment of life lens
pepper to understand that this
process that I went through despite
all that society put his head
that it was preferable to have a murderous son
only thief a drug addict son because
according to him of that yes I could get
but a son with a pair of tits and that
he had no return even though
sacrificed many things is sacrificed
for if today the time and time
knowing for everything that has happened to me
they will ask for pipes to do the transit
and would go through all that has
past
no doubt the second would do it again
because the satisfaction of seeing me all
the days in the mirror and recognize that
person that I see there does not have any
price
one of the things that I thought was going to
sacrifice love
I said who is going to want a woman with
my characteristics who will love
or no woman with a penis to my surprise
had three loves in my life
three wonderful men who have
given a huge battle to be
with me because women after not only
we are discriminated against but we
our partners are also
discriminated against our family our
friends the people around us
talking about that topic came the issue in
the 2015 gender change and name in
the decree decree 1227 that for me
it was very important because it was the
first time the Colombian state
although I do not have a vagina
recognized as a woman and you
they have affected faction so big that
gives the subject of the vagina me when
I started my transit process myself
I dreamed about the vagina I slept and
think about a vagina was eating
pizza in the vagina on having a page
page by page because I thought
that the only way to validate me as
a woman was having a vagina already with
Over the years I realized that a
It does not make me have my wife do not know
have a penis a vagina
it makes me a woman what you see
today here
being a transgender woman has opened me
more doors than I closed and
already with this I want to conclude saying that
I always think of the good faith of
people and I do not think anyone discriminates
another person for more for being a bad
person because he has bad feelings
because he wants to people
discriminate because of ignorance because
we humans what not
we know what we do not know
we have fear that we have for
caution
then my invitation today is to be
give the opportunity to open your head
unlearn the things that do not work
to learn new things about not getting
limitations before giving yourself the opportunity
and today I can say that transit is not
a whim
transit is a necessity and the
transit was the bridge so that today my
body be my dream come true
thank you very much
[Applause]
[Music]
and
[Music]
and
The cans
”
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