The society in the 21st century have a more open mind with the gender and

sexual diversity than other generations, even though not all people has developed
consciousness in the respect and acceptance of people sexual orientation and gender
identity specially in such a traditional country like Colombia.

It is necessary that the school generates a free social environment where

children in early ages can develop their gender identity and their sexual orientation with
no trouble, to them have a safe space where they can have liberty of expression without
trespassing or judging other personalities. But we all know, the school may not always
keep that in mind, so the only way to start a change on that is with us teachers.

As teachers it is our responsibility to build scenarios where children can develop

their personalities, for they grow a self-acceptance feel about who they are and
construct their identities by themselves. In children’s family it will not always be a good
environment for the children feeling well about who they are, so it is important that when
the children go to school, they must have a safe learning environment where they can
grow up their personalities.

I take for example my personal experience; I have half and half, both good and
unpleasant experience, in my sexual orientation development and my gender
expression as a gay man. I “came out the closet,” and the quotes I may explain it later,
when I was thirteen. The very first person that I talked about that was my godmother, I
told her that I thought and I was sure about me being attracted to men instead of
women, then she told me that If I was sure of that I should accept it and feel good about
it, but she did not told me anything else, I think because she is really religious and old-
fashioned so she didn’t knew what to think. She had Alzheimer, so when she told my
grandmother that, she did not think that my grandmother was going to tell the whole
family and tell my mother that I should get help with a psychologist because that was
not normal, and it was my mother’s responsibility to prevent me being different. Luckily,
my mother never thought doing that and she always told me that I must be the person
that I want to be and not what other people thought. when I took courage and told my
mother my sexual orientation, she said that she loved me and will accept me without
any hesitate. Unfortunately, she and my cousin were the only ones in my mother’s
family that thought that, but just the acceptance of two people in that family gave me the
reasons of knowing that I was normal, and I was more beautiful than I thought. Other
experience that I remember with all my heart was the very first time I wore makeup in
front of everybody in my father’s family. I remembered that I was nervous because I
never said my sexual orientation to my grandma, and she is the person that I most love
in the world. But when she saw me with make-up, she told me something that left me in
tears, she told me “Oh, are you going to start wearing makeup? You need to take good
care of your skin to keep it clean because makeup can cause acne” the acceptance that
I always had from her also gave me strength on building who I was.

in the following years I learned that I must be proud of who I am and I must know
who I am and that is not other people opinion, because when you know who you are,
when you explore who you are, when you embrace who you are, when you experiment
who you are, when you feel happy about who you are, you have the most valuable thing
in the word and that is loving yourself. You do not have the responsibility to tell
everybody who you are because the only one whose opinion is important is yourself.
People should not be in or out the closet, because you need to love and value the only
one that is going to be with you until you die and that is yourself.

Even so, there is proven that it not matters how hard it will be to construct who
you are, if you have the acceptance in any environment that you may present, it will give
you enough strength to feel good about yourself, and that is why teachers must build
scenarios where the children may feel accepted, because when children have a safe
place of breaking free who they are, they have the opportunity to build the self-
acceptance that they need for their life. Thank you for listening to me, and I hope that
you embrace the things that I said not only when you will teach but also embrace it in
your lives.