Honduras: A Central American Country in Crisis

During my time at the Ronald McDonald House I truly connected with a family from Honduras.  In the months over which we got to know each other I grew close with the three generations of incredible people who had uprooted from the developing country (the new term which has replaced the outdated "third world" label) they were from and came to America to seek treatment for their child's rare and fatal disease.  Although they didn't speak English and I was the only Spanish-speaker among the group communication came easily and when they went back to Honduras I was both incredibly happy  that they would be joining their family again after nearly a year apart and worried that they would be leaving the House to go back to a country that didn't have adequate medical care to continue caring for their little one.

Then I looked up their hometown, and I didn't fear for the little one's health, but for his life.  It's the murder capital of the world, inside the murder capital of the world.  Honduras is a crime-ridden, gang-ruled, powder-keg of drugs and weapons one bad moment away from ignition.  The murder rate is 90 people per 100,000 which tallies up to around 437,000 intentional homicides a year.  The police are corrupt, and, other than the gangs, are the biggest perpetrators of these murders.  The government has lost control, the hospitals are understaffed, many died waiting to be treated, schools are no longer in operation.  Many Americans (or other people enjoying the comforts of a first world country) would consider it anarchy.

Before we judge, however; we must know all the facts.  We may not judge while sitting in our living rooms, knowing that if we get hurt we will simply call for the ambulance to take us to one of the three hospitals where we will be guaranteed a room and a doctor will see us and put a bandage on our boo-boo and send us on our way.  One of the reasons that our country is like this is because America is not run by drug lords and does not rely entirely on drug trading as its commercial enterprise.  However, because it does not, it has resorted to destroying other countries so that it can still shoot, snort, and sniff like there's no tomorrow.  Namely: Honduras.

All the violence, all the war, all the drugs, all the death that plagues Honduras and has turned it into a living hell for it's residents who are trapped in the crossfire of a war being fought by the poor but benefiting only the rich.  Honduras is the biggest drug route to the USA, and yet when the US is asked by national peace-keeping groups to get involved in Honduras to help rehabilitate the country and shut down the drug trade the US is reluctant, when it doesn't simply say no altogether.  It has avoided sending help to Honduras due to the danger the Honduran gangs that control the country pose to military and government officials.  The main group in charge of assistance in Honduras is the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI) which covers a large region of Latin America and is not trying to keep peace in one developing country where narcotics trafficking is becoming a bigger problem by the day, but seven.  Additionally, since the Honduran military coup and following constitutional crisis in 2009 American support in Honduras has been weak and inconsistent.  Support has been pulled in many crucial areas, including some of the most critical aid that was being provided to the Honduran people, military assistance to help regain control over the streets which were and still are controlled by gangs, and the stop of counter-narcotics assistance.

Because of America's refusal to help fix a problem that they started, considering that the drugs are all being trafficked to the wonderful USA, people are brutally murdered in the streets to make an example for others.  The most common victims of these attacks are children.  These children have families: mothers and fathers who will never see their child blow out birthday candles on another cake; siblings who will not understand where their brother or sister has gone, and why she isn't coming back again; friends who will be forced to attend the funeral of someone who just days ago they were playing games with.  Houses are burned down, cars are blown up, none of it is reported, and it is all thought of as an unavoidable fact of life.  Unemployment rates are at nearly one half of the Honduran people, meaning that for many the only way to provide for their loved ones is to join a gang and become one of the feared.  

In America many look down on these developing countries with scorn, believing that their problems are due to their mistakes and they should bail themselves out on their own.  But when you're bailing water from a sinking ship with a spoon, as Juan Orlando Hernandez is valiantly trying to do, sometimes the white flares need to be sent up and help needs to arrive.  America isn't willing to help however; maybe we're all in denial that we are a major cause of the crisis that Honduras is in, maybe our country is just too ignorant to turn off Desperate Housewives and watch something with some actual educational value, maybe we can't deal with the fact that we aren't quite as Christian and as moral as we tell ourselves we are.  Whatever our reasons are we repeatedly ignore everything going on outside our bubble, even when it's happening in our own country, unless it is force-fed to us, which is when we act like we've been following the story since it surfaced months ago and didn't just find out about it because our favorite actress mentioned it in a tweet.

The "A" in LGBTQIA

In America everything seems to revolve around sex.  Whether it's Miley Cyrus giving Robin Thicke a lap dance on live TV or nearly-naked movie stars on magazine covers the overt display of sexuality is everywhere.  So for people who don't experience sexual attraction our society can be an unfamiliar, and hostile place.  Most people in America haven't even heard the term asexual used outside of a biology room, where it is always used in conjunction with reproduction to discuss organisms that reproduce on their own.  Few have heard of asexuality, and even less know what means.

Asexuality is a lack of sexual attraction, and an asexual is therefore a person who does not experience sexual attraction.  The asexual, or "Ace" label is one that is misunderstood, and frequently used incorrectly. Asexuality has a variety of misconceptions floating around it, all of which need to be dispelled.  For one thing: asexual and aromatic are two completely different things.  An aromantic is a person who does not feel romantic attraction; this person will most likely never fall in love, never have a significant other, and will generally be perfectly content on their own.  I say generally because romanticism, like sexuality, is always a spectrum.  There are aromantic asexuals, and there are romantic asexuals who generally attach a gender-prefix such as "hetero-romantic asexual".  Asexuality simply means that the person does not experience sexual attraction, there are many asexuals who want romantic relationships, physical relationships, who like to hug, and cuddle, and are just like everyone else, minus the sex.

The asexual label is high stigmatized, even in the LGBTQ+ community, which is supposed to be a safe space for all who do not fit into the heteronormative box which has always been seen as the only place where people "should" be. An  LGBTQ+ persons have a variety of reasons for thinking that asexuals shouldn't be included in the LGBTQ+ community, including that asexuals face no oppression and that asexuality is a choice instead of a sexual identity and is therefore different from the rest of the identities that are always represented.  Gay activist Dan Savage, who is known for being a bit of jerk, openly mocked the ace community in the documentary (A)Sexual by calling asexuality a preference, and ridiculing asexuals who marched in Pride parades, saying that "you have the asexuals marching for the right to not do anything. Which is hilarious. Like, you didn’t need to march for that right. You just need to stay home, not do anything."  What the rest of the LGBTQ+ community doesn't seem to realize is that asexuals do in fact have something to fight for, and that they face the same discrimination that any non-heteronormative person faces.  Because as much as we say sex is bad and you shouldn't be having it, if you say that you just don't want it, suddenly you're some sort of freak. 

While there isn't a lot of outwards hate towards asexuals in the media, this is most likely because no one has ever heard of the invisible 1% of people who lack the ability to feel sexual attraction. However after a person has come out as asexual they are often subject to ridicule, acephobia, and occasionally even corrective rape. All of these are dangerous, but the latter especially so, an an ace person will often believe that they deserved it, because the person was only trying to help them.  The verbal and emotional abuse to asexuals can include: claiming their sexuality is a choice, claiming their sexuality is a phase, claiming their sexuality is not a real thing, claiming that they are just being a prude, claiming that they just haven't met the right guy/girl yet, or claiming that they are a straight person who is just trying to be a "Special Snowflake."

So what does any of this have to do with gender?  During my AP English class we were going through a "complete" list of gender terms which was made by a social justice activist who travels the country talking to kids about gender identity and oppression.  And yet he knew a flawed, barely researched definition of asexuality, that, when given to my class, was mocked during the rest of the school day and was consistently used incorrectly. How can we trust a man to educate our youth on their gender identity and treating others' gender identity with respect when he doesn't even have a full grasp on the basics of all the sexualities, which play a very large and very influential role in many non-binary gender persons lives. 

A Girl in a Man's World

I have always known that I will be limited because I was born and wrapped in a pink blanket.  Pink balloons adorned the mailbox pronouncing "It's a Girl!" at the eager new parent's house, while my grandparents worried over whether or not I would be as smart as the baby boy my mom's best friend had delivered a few months earlier.  As a child I ran with that boy all the time, and I am in photos it is difficult to tell which of us is which, as my parents had an affinity for chopping my hair short and dressing me in fairly androgynous clothes.  I was a rambunctious girl, prone to rolling in the dirt, climbing precariously stacked objects, and getting into fights with the boys in my neighborhood.  This was supported by my family, who carried an underlying concern about how I would suffer in America due to my gender.  At age three when I would sit and watch "Barney" squealing every time the beautiful Cody graced my preschool presence by walking on screen my father was already concerned that my "boy obsession" would hold me back in life.

While my parents simply tried to toughen me up by shortening my hyper-feminine name to the more assertive one that sounded strong, and by enrolling me in sport after another my grandfather had other methods of how to make me a girl who would survive in the real world.  As a blue collar, backwoods man who had spent his entire life in factories trying to scrape together enough money to send my mom to college he had experienced a lot of the wold, and the ugly discrimination that people face.  Beginning at a very young age I started doing "boy's work" that would make me more likely to survive in a world run by men.  Between doing carpentry in the garage, learning about electrician's work, fishing in my Uncle's pond, and learning about what had happened to the rest of the deer whose antlers currently resided on a plaque above the workbench I became a tough-as-nails, rough-and-tumble, country girl.

At the same time that I was learning about how to clean a shotgun, gut a fish, and jump a car, I was also learning traditional women's work.  My mom taught me to hem dresses, stitch rips, and reattach buttons.  Nan taught me the secrets of Southern cooking, and by the age of seven I could bake snickerdoodles and have sweet tea brewed and iced in time for when everyone wanted to take their afternoon sit-down.  I have the manners of Scarlett O'Hara, I can clean a house better than a maid service, and I am well-trained in the art of child rearing (which I have put to use in a babysitting business that is coveted in my hometown).

Now as a young adult I have a unique personality that can only be described as "rough-and-tumble girly girl" which I believe was greatly influenced by the way I was raised.  And I was raised the way I was due to the social conventions that surround being a girl in America.  In some countries my parents simply would have committed infanticide, gotten rid of my body, and claimed I was a tragically stillborn child.  America has moved forward from that time, but still women suffer in the shadow of men.  I was reared with the feminine rules that govern the South because as a girl I am required to be able to sip sweet tea, bake lemon squares and cook gumbo, and keep my head down.  I was also brought up with the skills that dads generally teach their sons because my grandfather didn't want me to be useless in the workforce, a girl that guys would walk on and take advantage of.  So I learned to shoot, fight, work on cars, and hold my own in a discussion about politics.  I am not resentful of this, I enjoy both sides of my personality and I treasure the memories I have of baking with my Nan, decorating before family members came for a party, as well as the memories I have of my grandfather letting me check the oil in my mom's car, or sitting at the range and shooting over huge towers of Diet Rite cans.  I just question whether it is fair that this only happens to girls.  I certainly haven't heard of families freaking out when they had a boy because they thought his gender would keep him from being president.