Rubí Gudiño always knew she was a girl. At the age of 16, when she entered the listening world, she discovered in the Zona Rosa of Mexico City, in the bustling noise of colors, that there were different ways of expressing it. Trans is now the suffix that abbreviates her gender identity, but to give greater precision she is named deaf trans woman.
Tonight, between the end of his workday and the pending readings of the university, find a space to talk. The talk is given with the help of Daniel Martínez, Mexican Sign Language interpreter, within the framework of the National Day for Labor Inclusion.
He has been working for the Mexico City Water System (Sacmex) for six years. Finish the high School, get a job and entering the university “I have done it alone, I have had to make an effort. I want to be a complete woman and that my studies give me to live and do what I want to do”.
In his family on the maternal and paternal side, the majority are deaf people. “I am the fourth generation, but there are five of us” with that condition. “My dad has been lucky with his jobs and also other family members. It has not been easy, we must work hard to maintain them because it is difficult to find them”.
Some of their deaf cousins ”don’t have a stable work nor with social security because they did not study”. And some of the women in the family have had to wash and iron other people’s clothes.
According to Population and Housing Census 2020in Mexico more than 6.1 million people have some kind of disability. The average schooling is 4.7 years, according to the National Survey of Demographic Dynamics (Endid).
“This is reflected in the economic participation rate,” says the National Work and Employment Program for Persons with Disabilities 2021-2024. just the 30% of this group of the population has a job.
The rate for women it is much lower, only 18% participate in the labor market, “compared to 42.3% of men with disabilities and 35.5% of their counterparts without disabilities”.
Given this reality, it is not surprising that one in two people with disabilities is in a situation of poverty, according to the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (Coneval). And that 10% live in extreme poverty.
On the other hand, according to the National Diagnosis on Discrimination towards LGBT people, the 29% of trans women have had difficulty finding work. This is the highest percentage within the different populations of sexual diversity.
from school to work
“The secret is to get closer to the places where they give work and that employers give themselves the opportunity to meet us. Patience and time are required on both sides”, says Rubí Gudiño.
She will soon be the first graduate in her family, when she finishes her Criminal Investigation degree. Almost all of them reached primary school. “I was never an excellent student, I remember receiving many reprimands from my teachers, especially in elementary school,” she recalls.
The truth is that it was not about his abilities. Even within the Multiple Attention Center (CAM), in a group for hearing impaired peopleHis situation was very different. “They wanted me to speak and as much as I explained to them that my family is deaf, that nobody spoke in my house”, it seemed that they did not understand.
Since their great-grandparents and great-grandmothers, signs have been the mother tongue of the family, even for his younger siblings, who do listen. “For a year we lived in the house of a hearing aunt and she told my parents that she should also learn the oral language, so she started talking to me and talking. But reading lips is not easy.
That was not the only difficulty. “No one could help me with my homework because they didn’t study. Now I realize that my family’s processes have been slow,” she says with a sigh.
The next challenge was high school, at the National College of Technical Professional Education (Conalep) it was the only deaf person. It was the first time that she faced squarely the hearing world that does not listen to her needs.
“I started to learn more about Spanish, but I struggled a lot with my grammar. Some teachers believed that this is how deaf people write, so they helped me.”
Upon finishing Conalep, he did social service at Sacmex. She came to the offices and wrote on a piece of paper that she was deaf, but that she could communicate that way. It took 15 days to give him an answer, but they received him. And in the end, she stayed to work there, after competing for a definitive position in the protection area.
Bonding plans and programs
Starting this year, the Welfare Pension for People with disabilitiesa support of 2,800 pesos bimonthly, will include people over 30 years of age and up to 65. At the beginning of the six-year term, it was intended only for those under 29.
In June 2021, the Secretary of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS) published the employment program for this population. One of the actions that it proposes is to make available to them the National Network of Labor Linkages, created for those who have less employable conditions.
Some of the services provided by this network are counseling, job skills and aptitude assessment, workshops, and advice to find work.
The STPS is also committed to encouraging work centers to compile statistical records on labor inclusion. As well as promoting the use of the Valpar Components Work Sample System.
This instrument evaluates the skills of People with disabilities and older adults, identifies what activities they can carry out according to their condition and establishes a job profile. That way companies can match their vacancies.
The program indicates that, through the Labor Responsibility Distinction, which the STPS is designing, it will strengthen good practices. To obtain it, companies must receive verification and meet one of these three requirements: labor inclusion, labor equality and co-responsibility or prevention and eradication of forced and child labor.
In the case of labor inclusion they must have accessible and ergonomic spaces that comply with the Official Mexican Standard NOM-034 on safety conditions for access and development of activities for workers with disabilities, among other aspects.
A safety measure for deaf people, explains Rubí Gudiño, is the use of a bright color vest so that the rest of the staff knows that the person is not listening and should reach out, and perhaps touch the shoulder, to communicate.
But the labor inclusion it encompasses other conditions or situations of vulnerability. Discrimination and exclusion in employment and other spaces is intersectional, it can be for reasons of race, ethnicity, gender, age or sexual diversity. It is important that workplaces have this clear.
Ruby and its transitions
“Look, this was me.” Ruby Gudino He shows me a photograph of a boy just over a year old, wearing shorts and a sweatshirt, who is already standing up. Near him, sitting on the couch in the living room, his mother watches him.
“First she thought it was a matter of children, but then she and my dad realized that I preferred dolls and barbies.” She received several scoldings for it and was ordered to “play like a boy”, whatever that means. But he insisted and took his mom’s makeup, seeing himself with lipstick and blush made him happy.
In sixth grade, “I was very much in love with a boy.” It was then that she began to question why she didn’t like girls, like she was supposed to be. “When I entered high school I had to keep it a secret because I started receiving bullying of the companions. You know that teenagers are difficult.
High school showed him other ways of life. At the age of 16 he was immersed in a confusing environment, where the people around him spoke and heard but, at the same time, he understood it in one dimension: that of his sexuality. “You are gay,” they informed him. “I didn’t know what that was, I didn’t know about gender identities.”
One night with his new community, went to the Zona Rosa, in the Juárez neighborhood. in the old neighborhood queer Rubí Gudiño saw “men dressed as women” and immediately identified herself. It’s what I want, I told myself”, but his friends insisted that he was gay.
He finished Conalep, went to work, was unemployed for a while and then returned to Sacmex to leave his papers. Along with his labor process Rubí freed another, that of her sexual identity. Meanwhile, the LGBT+ movement continued to gain space, recognition of rights and getting more information to the people.
All of this Rubí reflected little by little in her way of dressing on weekends out and, later, also at work. “I started to try and wear dresses or blouses, put on makeup. Four years ago I made the decision to start hormonal treatment. And when the pandemic started I made my transition legal”, and he changed his name and gender identity on your birth certificate.
At work, her colleagues and her current boss have been supportive. “He is very young and, since he arrived, he understood me very well. When he was recovering from the bust operation, he left me tasks that did not involve a risk to my health”.
Rubí Gudiño highlights that what he has achieved has been with a lot of effort. “The employers they have prejudices or maybe they don’t know how to treat us and they are also afraid to get close, and that prevents a relationship from flowing”.
Clarify that progress requires both parties. “It is not the obligation of other people to learn everything, we must also approach, for example, to ask for a job because we are not less than anyone, we are at the same level. I share what I know so that you, who do not have this disability, understand. Hopefully we can have a bridge between communities to work better”.