LGBT Event: The Gwen Araujo Story

On November 14th, I attended a LGBT event about the murder of Gwen Araujo. Gwen’s story is heartbreaking and terrifying, and the event was very powerful for me. Gwen was a transgender girl in California who was brutally beaten and murdered by four boys at a party. They strangled her for being a transgender and buried her body. The four boys were indicted on hate crime charges and spent time in prison. Gwen’s story was made into a Lifetime movie and her mother spoke about the pain that she went through. Gwen’s mother spoke about the pain and suffering Gwen endured in her community, at school and at church. I was very moved by her story and I can’t even imagine the suffering Gwen and her family went through.

I was very glad that I attended this event, both as a future teacher, and a citizen of a community. Gwen’s mother, Sylvia, spoke about people fearing and shying away from transgender people because they did not know a lot about them. I personally did not know very much about the transgender community so the event was informational to me. In addition, my goals to promote diversity, education, and understanding were reinforced by listening to this woman speak and by watching the videos. As a future elementary educator, I want to promote appreciation of diversity and open mindedness among my students as much as possible. Sylvia told us that people were horrible to Gwen at school, even her teachers. I want to be a teacher who is caring and allows children to be who they are without fear of persecution or embarrassment. Every time I attend an event, no matter what the topic, I feel that I am becoming more educated and a better future teacher. I realize that teachers can make a huge difference in students’ lives. I think that by being as educated as possible about a variety of diverse issues or concepts, I can reach out to more students. Events such as these help build my teaching philosophy and attitude about creating an open minded, safe classroom community.