Without a doubt, the Latina/o community is based on strict traditions and old-fashioned beliefs. Maintaining the community this way helps individuals feel as though they are keeping their culture alive. What they fail to realize is that their traditions and beliefs sometimes marginalize people within their own group, such as those who identify as LGBTQ. Coming out as LGBTQ in society is already a difficult task because many view this lifestyle as ‘taboo’ and ‘unnatural.’ Coming out as LGBTQ in one’s Latina/o community is just as complex because of the common misogynistic, masculine, and patriarchal ideologies that both men and women internalize. Women within the Latina/o culture are expected to marry a man, have children, and dedicate their time towards their family. To their families, identifying as LGBTQ means that they will not keep that expected role as a woman, causing these women to feel as though they failed their loved ones. Over the past couple of years, a handful of transgender Latina women have been murdered with many of those cases still unsolved. In the article “The epidemic is real: transgender Latina in Texas murdered,” author Dawn Ennis states, “Tijerina’s name is now among 19 trans victims of murder in the United States in 2016. In all of last year, at least 21 trans people were killed. More than 80 percent of those killed in 2016 have been women and about 20 percent, including Tijerina, have been Latinas, according to HRC.” The violent experiences of these victims are not taken seriously or even publicly announced because no community and culture find them valuable or worthy enough for justice. Since these women were far from the traditional expectations of the Latina/o community, they have not really bothered to figure out the reasons behind the violence towards these specific victims.

Ennis’s article reminds me Carla Trujillo’s “Chicana Lesbians: Fear and Loathing in the Chicana Community” because Trujillo makes a point of how a Latina woman’s identity is not taken seriously if a man is not part of her life. A woman’s independence always threatens a man because that means he will lose control over something he has always been used to dominating. Cherrie Moraga is one of many lesbian Chicana scholars who have dedicated their work towards reclaiming their gender and sexual identity. In Moraga’s “Queer Aztlan,” she addresses her bold move to bring up LGBTQ issues within the Chicana/o moviement since they were hardly talked about. I feel as though Moraga expresses some kind of resentment towards her community because they made her feel like an outcast since they did not represent the different layers of her identity fairly.

Although I truly love my Latina/o culture, I feel as though the patriarchy and masculinity is damaging the identities of women who identify as LGBTQ. We cannot call ourselves a connected community if we keep marginalizing people who have every right to be a part of us, even if they do not follow the ‘traditional’ values that are imposed by men.

http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2016/08/epidemic-real-transgender-latina-texas-murdered/