News and Events => Opinions & Editorials => Topic started by: Shana A on April 14, 2012, 11:25:28 AM Return to Full Version

Title: Worlds Apart? I'm Just Not Sure
Post by: Shana A on April 14, 2012, 11:25:28 AM
Worlds Apart? I'm Just Not Sure

Filed By Guest Blogger | April 13, 2012 4:00 PM

http://www.bilerico.com/2012/04/worlds_apart_im_just_not_sure.php (http://www.bilerico.com/2012/04/worlds_apart_im_just_not_sure.php)

Editors' Note: Guest blogger Brian Tofte-Schumacher is Communications Associate at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

International arrivals terminal, JFK. My assignment: meet and accompany Johana Esmeralda Ramirez, an LGBT Human Rights defender to the UN for a series of meetings and hearings where she would bigstock-Tourist-info-signage-in-airpor-12112154.jpgtestify to the conditions faced by LGBT people in her country.

So far, my work at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission has led me on an amazing journey. I've met people who have opened my eyes to perspectives I'd never dreamed of. This time was no different.

Johana is a Guatemalan trans activist who came to New York to present a report to the UN Human Rights Committee. I've been fortunate, getting to know activists from around the world through my work, but I was in for a particular challenge this time: Johana only speaks Spanish. While I have a few years of Spanish classes under my belt, I'm far from fluent. Having lived in mostly white Washington State before I moved to New York I had neither the language immersion in Spanish nor the personal preparation to carry out a nuanced conversation on human rights violations with a trans activist from Guatemala. Are our worlds too far apart for me to be helpful? I didn't know.