lunes, 18 de enero de 2010

Participación promueve unas Jornadas sobre homosexualidad y discapacidad intelectual (2008)

miércoles 10 de septiembre de 2008

"El Concejal de Cultura y Participación Ciudadana del Ayuntamiento de Coslada, Pedro San Frutos, inaugurará mañana sábado 12 de julio a las 10,30 horas, en la sede de ASPIMIP, unas jornadas de formación donde los diferentes delegados/as de las comunidades autónomas de la Fundación Triángulo, recibirán formación a cargo de profesionales de la Asociación ASPIMIP en materia de Discapacidad y Afectividad y Sexualidad para personas con discapacidad. La sede de ASPIMIP se encuentra en la Avda. Madrid, 2 posterior)."

Fuente: coslada.es

domingo, 17 de enero de 2010

Debate sobre devotee y discapacidad

anundis.com

Publicado por SALLY DE JACK el diciembre 15, 2009:

"Estos ha surgido una pregunta en mi interior... ¿puede un devote enamorarse realmente de una persona con discapacidad?... yo sé que el amor, es un sentimiento muy especial, pero... si el devotismo es sólo eso... admiraciòn por la gente con discap, se podrá convertir en amor verdadero?... qué opinas?.. "

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domingo, 10 de enero de 2010

Educación afectivo-sexual en alumnos con necesidades educativas especiales

Curso para maestros de educación especial, donde se habla también sobre homosexualidad, heterosexualidad, bisexualidad y transexualidad en personas con discapacidad en educa.madrid.org

viernes, 8 de enero de 2010

Reportaje: Homosexualidad y discapacidad

GARVA, D., "Discapacidad y homosexualidad: ¿Doble discriminación?" en revista Moxow, nº 28, diciembre, 2009, p. 24. Disponible: aquí Fuente: narrativagay.com

LA ACEPTACIÓN DE NUESTRA ORIENTACIÓN SEXUAL PUEDE CONVERTIRSE EN UNA ODISEA, PERO QUÉ OCURRE CUANDO LA PERSONA PADECE ALGÚN TIPO DE DISCAPACIDAD. LOS ESTUDIOS AFIRMAN QUE LAS PERSONAS LGTB CON DISCAPACIDAD SUFREN UNA DOBLE DISCRIMINACIÓN Y ESTO LES CONDUCE A LA INVISIBILIDAD QUE SUFREN EN LA SOCIEDAD Y DENTRO DEL PROPIO COLECTIVO LGTB.

Por DAVID GARVA
En la actualidad, es patente que el número de personas LGTB con discapacidad se ha hecho más visible, fruto de la aceptación de la persona y su desarrollo en el entramado social. Jesús González, es una de las voces más versadas en el tema, quien en el año 2005 se aventuró a elaborar un ensayo sobre las personas LGTB con discapacidad; el resultado fue: Reinventarse. La doble exclusión: vivir siendo homosexual y discapacitado, un libro disponible en la red y que arroja información sobre los diversos aspectos que comprenden la vida de una persona que como el es gay y discapacitado. Para situarnos en la realidad española, González argumenta: “Casi 4 millones de personas son discapacitadas en nuestro país, es decir, un 10% de la población española. En cuanto al colectivo LGTB, entre un 8% y un 12% son los datos que se estiman de personas que son gay, lesbiana o transexual en España.”

A tenor de estos datos, González se plantea: “¿Por qué la sociedad sana y heterosexual nos trata de manera diferente?” A lo que responde que sin lugar a dudas ese trato desigual proviene de la visión distorsionada que esos colectivos mayoritarios y supuestamente normales, tienen de nosotros. En este sentido, González afirma: “Ser gay, lesbiana o transexual en nuestro país, aún genera una serie de problemas de aceptación social. La discriminación en el mundo laboral, los problemas de “Bullying” en centros escolares, la consumación de los derechos plenos como ciudadanos de primer orden, se enfrentan en determinados territorios y mentalidades con una arcaica concepción de la homosexualidad que, aún todavía, algunos tildan de enfermedad, de aberración o de malformación genética. Se ha construido mucho, pero aún quedan escollos que derribar.”

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En el caso de los discapacitados LGTB no sólo tienen que franquear la barrera que les supone su orientación sexual sino la propia discapacidad, por este motivo, González añade: “La discapacidad, en su parcela de exclusión, ha sido considerada, en determinados círculos sociales, como una tara insalvable, como un error de la naturaleza. Al igual que los homosexuales, a los que se llegó a denominar de “tarados”, “subnormales”, “anormales” o “lisiados”, han sido perseguidos o diezmados por los nazis, o incluso encerrados en manicomios, en centros psiquiátricos, o en hospitales.”

Para luchar contra estas discriminaciones y motivar al cambio social, González propone como solución la aceptación, que consistiría en encontrar un lugar en la sociedad. La normalización de las personas con discapacidad tiene que estar ligada a todos los ámbitos del desarrollo de la persona en sociedad, por ello, González puntualiza: “el acceso a la cultura y al ocio resultan fundamentales, el fomento de estas actividades, en una sociedad avanzada como pretende ser la nuestra, cada vez cobran más importancia y, por ello, la plena normalización pasa necesariamente por su accesibilidad para hacerlas asequibles a todos los ciudadanos. La cultura, tanto desde la perspectiva de la creación artística, como desde la del disfrute de las obras realizadas por otros, debería resultar accesible a todas aquellas personas con discapacidad que pretendan desarrollar sus capacidades y sus aficiones. El turismo, el deporte de base, el ocio en su globalidad, han de ser alternativas al alcance de las personas con discapacidad.”

¿SON ASEXUADAS LAS PERSONAS CON DISCAPACIDAD?
La sexualidad de las personas con discapacidad es el tema más desconocido, de esta forma, Jesús González afirma: “A menudo se considera a las personas con discapacidad física o intelectual, personas como no sexuales. El sexo está muy asociado a la juventud y el atractivo físico, y cuando uno no lo es, se ve a menudo como “impropio”. Si se discute sobre sexo y discapacidad, normalmente se refiere a la capacidad, a las técnicas y la fertilidad, dejando atrás el concepto de los sentimientos sexuales y, por tanto, olvidándonos de la parte afectiva. Estos aspectos, pues, ignoran el afecto, las emociones, el tocar…” Además, González añade en su estudio las palabras cargadas de significado del Director Ejecutivo del CERMI (Comité Español de Representantes de Personas con Discapacidad): “No dispongo de información, ni de datos, como mucho de impresiones, y no sé si con esto escaso acervo sería legítimo pronunciarse. Podría hablar, pero a la ligera. Hay un hecho indiscutible, no obstante, y es que son personas apenas visibles, y sus manifestaciones y prácticas menos. Desde el mundo de la discapacidad, la cuestión de la llamada “homosexualidad”, ha sido ignorada olímpicamente. Supongo, pero no es más que una suposición, que no se ha querido ligar “la desgracia” de la discapacidad, con el “vicio” de la homosexualidad. Pero, insisto, no me puedo pronunciar por desconocimiento”.

En el desarrollo sexual de las personas con discapacidad cobra mucha relevancia su entorno, en este sentido, Marta del Pino asegura: “Las vidas de las personas con discapacidad intelectual se desarrollan en entornos donde las principales interrelaciones son con la familia y profesionales. Por ello, el abordaje del tema de la afectividad y sexualidad de las personas con discapacidad intelectual resulta un tanto delicado.” Asimismo, incide en las pautas para normalizar la afectividad en estas personas aconsejando a sus familias y a los profesionales: “En una sociedad donde el sexo está omnipresente a nuestro alrededor, es un error ignorar y creer que las personas con discapacidad intelectual no tienen esas necesidades o no son como los demás en este aspecto; por lo que tenemos que considerar la sexualidad como un elemento más dentro de nuestra atención a estas personas, e imprescindible para poder trabajar con los principios básicos de esta atención: integración y normalización.”

LA SITUACIÓN DE CHICAS LESBIANAS CON DISCAPACIDAD

En referencia a este tema, Beatriz Gimeno declara: “ Ser una lesbiana funcionalmente diversa me ha dado casi todo lo que soy, una vida intensa y muy distinta a las vidas normales, abierta a unas posibilidades que poca gente tiene, con experiencias enormemente enriquecedoras. Creo que, en determinadas condiciones, no hay nada mejor que poder ver el mundo desde donde muy poca gente puede verlo: desde los márgenes. No estoy siendo voluntarista y he dicho “en determinadas condiciones” pero lo cierto es que siento que donde yo estoy poca gente ha estado, la vista que yo tengo no la tiene todo el mundo, y creo que eso ha hecho mi vida mejor. Me gusta mi vida y mi cuerpo, que es fuente de satisfacción, de amor y de placer.” Asimismo, con respecto a la invisibilidad del colectivo lésbico con discapacidad, Gimeno puntualiza: Siempre estamos hablando de invisibilidad, pero pocas veces hablamos que no hay mayor invisibilidad que ser invisible para los demás en cuanto a la posibilidad de suscitar deseo.

Cristina Santacruz es el testimonio más reseñable de la situación de las lesbianas con discapacidad, Cristina asegura que nadie nos informa de los cambios que se van produciendo en nuestro cuerpo y de repente nos dicen “Tu no puedes salir con chicos porque te quedas embarazada” “Mejor te quedas con nosotros en casa que somos los que más te queremos”. A partir de ahí ya sabemos lo que es la sexualidad, la sexualidad es igual a embarazo.

Asimismo, Santacruz puntualiza: “Tanto miedo a nuestro alrededor, tanto decirnos que nosotras no podemos hacer lo que hacen las demás mujeres de nuestra edad, porque tenemos un certificado de minusvalía, nos hace sentir como bichos raros. Las pocas veces que estamos a solas con un chico y que surge afecto entre nosotros se nos enciende al momento la luz del embarazo.”

Finalmente, para expresar como es vista por la sociedad, Santacruz declara: “Hay mujeres de muchos tipos altas, bajas, guapas, feas, responsables, irresponsable, pero las mujeres con discapacidad somos todas iguales, vamos, que no somos mujeres somos discapacitadas.”

EL SEXO DE LOS ÁNGELES

El sexo de los ángeles es un documental dirigido por Jesús González y Frank Toro. Está dividido en diez secciones o capítulos, en el que a través de siete testimonios explican en primera personas sus experiencias como personas homosexuales con discapacidad, o bien, exponen sus opiniones como representantes de importantes instituciones.

Los personajes de este documental están atrapados en un laberinto de barreras físicas y mentales, son ignorados socialmente, y tratan de superar cualquiera de los retos que plantea la vida cotidiana que resulta mucho más difícil desde una silla de ruedas, desde el silencio de la sordera o desde cualquier otra dificultad física. Considerados durante mucho tiempo seres asexuados, la aceptación y desarrollo de la sexualidad, en especial de la homosexualidad, resulta mucho más compleja para las personas con discapacidades.


lunes, 4 de enero de 2010

Disabled Early, Gay Late

by Charles Coventry on March 14, 2007 (nsrc.sfsu.edu)

I was born in 1943 in the west of Scotland, and with the exception of a year at a school for children with cerebral palsy (CP) in Edinburgh, I lived till the age of twelve with my parents in Glasgow. The school for children with CP, Westerlea, had assessed me as fit to attend a small mainstream school with other children of my own age, where my abilities, notably a mechanical ability, skill with words, and musical talent could have been developed. Back in Glasgow, however, all disabled children were required to attend special schools where the pace was that of the slowest. Because I was more physically fit or more mentally agile than most of my classmates, I had no friends at school, the beginning of a life of loneliness.

At home my sister and my girl cousins created their own society, so once again I was isolated. My father couldn’t be bothered with my interest in mechanical things. Instead he tried to cram the subjects of his own expertise—politics, economics and social studies—into my head even before I was of school age, which is five in the United Kingdom. When I finally made it into mainstream education, at Alloa Academy in Clackmannanshire, east central Scotland, I came out with the required passes for university entrance, mainly languages, but that was really all I got out of school. Unable to participate in physical education and games, my isolation grew. I wasn’t bullied for not playing rugby, as I might have been at a school supported by public funds, but still I was excluded from the company of other pupils.

Instead of helping me to find pursuits that might have given me the company of my peers, the school found nothing for me but extra lessons. Now that I have gay friends for the first time in my life I realize that many gay people understand what being “non-sports” was like as a child, much better, I believe, than most straight people do. At a conference in Belfast, for example, I met a gay man who had been educated at a Roman Catholic school for boys. He was always in trouble, he told me, for not being good at PE and team games. When I mentioned that I had been left out for being “non-sports”, there was no need to explain. He got the point straight away. “Yes,” he said, “isolation.”

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Another example relates to a specific activity. When I came to Edinburgh at the age of forty for further degree study, I got the chance to learn to swim by a method specially designed for disabled people. A gay journalist I met, who had been sent to one of the “good” Edinburgh schools, had been taken to a swimming pool at the age of eight and literally “thrown in at the deep end.” Terrified, he could never face swimming again, yet when I told him about learning to swim he could appreciate the feeling of independence that being in the water gave me.

Outside of school I was fortunate that relatives on my mother’s side of the family, keen on outdoor activities, encouraged me to go for walks in the country. These were mostly solitary excursions, so when I read Exile and Pride I was struck that Eli Clare was allowed to take part in a cross-country run, a group activity. Even so, the adults involved reacted to Eli exactly as they had to me, by setting the experience apart. I recall this same feeling when I had to endure an “interview” with one of the tabloid newspapers about an essay I had written. In no time the whole county had heard of “the boy that looks at old buildings.” Singled out in this condescending fashion, I felt myself a freak and was put off the subject of architecture till after completion of my first degree at St. Andrews University.

The contrast between Alloa Academy in rural Scotland in the late 1950s and early 1960s and Eli Clare’s school in Ohio in the 1970s makes me wonder whether it reflects a change of attitude over time, or whether this kind of difference between Britain and America always existed. I know that pupils with disabilities are now being helped to do PE in two of our primary schools in Edinburgh, but I still don’t know what would happen at secondary level.

My inability to dance when I was a boy inspired odd and often contradictory attitudes on the part of adults. Sometimes I got the impression that my not being able to dance was a sign of how “good” I was for not getting involved with girls at an inappropriate age. Learning about the lives of other gay men has given me a larger view of all sorts of personal experience. One able-bodied couple I met both suffered from their enthusiasm for dancing of different kinds. One partner, originally from the south of England, was seen as effeminate when he was the only boy in a children’s ballet class; his partner, from the Edinburgh area, was tormented in primary school for being good at Scottish country dancing.

Does this suggest that my inability to dance was seen by some adults as evidence that I was a “real” man, not effeminate? I cannot be sure.

Sex and Isolation

The first thing I learned about sex came from my father’s warning that something would happen to little boys who played with their penises—as I tended to do. I began to wonder if that “something” was “become homosexual”. Reading a magazine article that addressed medical myths about homosexuality only confirmed my suspicion. A gay friend a few years my senior said that in our school days the gay (able-bodied) boy attracted to other boys in the changing room might, to avoid trouble, put on a show of being inept at games. Remember that homosexual acts were still a criminal offense at this time.

Looking back, I think that I came to realize at an early age that there were many ways of being isolated, and that while being left out was something done to me, it was also something I could embrace as a form of self protection. In my case the typical “I hate girls” stage persisted longer than the regulation age of fifteen...

Teasing about girlfriends ceased having an effect by my late teens, and when careers were being discussed, I knew that I had missed out on so many childhood things that I was unsure about school teaching and being able to control a class. Gay dads and lesbian mums abound, of course, but not all gay men make good fathers; for my part, I was dubious about being able not only to control school children in a class but to raise children of my own. My unsettled feelings about children proved to be deeper than I’d realized: they got me sacked from my first job when I lashed out and hit a child full force because it was the only way I could think to deal with a difficult situation.

I wonder how widespread these feelings are among gay men of my generation. One gay man of my acquaintance told me that he had to warn his brother-in-law not to let his children rush up to him clamoring for sweets because he was liable to hit them; another man said that he couldn’t communicate with children until they were of an age to think about university; and a gay friend in London with manic depression said that parenthood suited some gay people, suggesting that it probably wouldn’t suit him.

I realize now that the disabled person’s uneasiness over gender roles has to do with more than parenting. Where able-bodied gay men and lesbians may do things they aren’t supposed to do conventionally (a boy might do embroidery, a girl auto mechanics), those of us with a physical disability may find that we fail at “male” or “female” things in more ordinary ways, something I realized from reading Eli Clare who, in Exile and Pride describes a family photograph that makes her remember being forcibly got into a skirt at the age of thirteen. She recalls asking her mother, “Am I feminine?” As an adult, since she can’t put on a skirt without help, she wears jeans instead. Most people think she’s a teenage boy, or, as she puts it, “neither a boy nor a girl.”

After reading Clare’s account, I recognized several things that symbolized my inability to “be male” as a teenager, including tobacco, alcohol, and driving. Because my ability to focus visually is diminished by paralysis of one eye I could not manage to light things and, consequently, was terrified by flames. When I was about sixteen my father expected me to start smoking a pipe, like him, or, on special occasions, a cigar. It was the pipe, however, that was the sign of the “real” man, and, for my Labour-voting parents, enjoyed extra cachet as a left-wing symbol, but as soon as cigarettes or cigars came near me I panicked. With a scream of “No!” I would nearly jump through the ceiling.

At home the result was a lecture on manners and, in public, comments from strangers about cowardice. Sometimes I was told not to be “like an old lady.” I was even told that smoking “soothed the nerves.” How could something frightening possibly soothe the nerves, I wondered? Alcohol consumption, too, as a measure of manliness, was something I failed at. With no taste for whisky I suppose I make a thoroughly second-rate Scotsman.

Although smoking and drinking no longer loom large as symbols in my life, somebody who discovers that I have never run a car and have to get household repairs done by others, might question my “manliness”. The truth, of course, is that I simply can’t manage those things physically. Looking to opposite stereotypes, a visitor seeing no sign of sewing or embroidery in my home might conclude that I am a “real man” after all, while the truth is these are things I can’t do because of my partial vision. Some might despise men who engage in those pursuits; I have every admiration for them.

Stereotypes like the ones I’ve mentioned above help to create attitudes that result in gay-directed hate crimes, but if I were to be assaulted it would probably be because of my disability. In fact just such an incident did take place in 1999, when I was stoned by a group of children as if it were 1850 and I the village idiot. Because this attack started soon after the revived Scottish Parliament met for the first time since 1707 I do not think it far-fetched to assume that the children’s behavior might have been part of a perverted sense of reborn nationalism, as if someone had taught them to revive a venerable old Scottish custom.

Coping with Learning Disabilities

My learning difficulties, first detected at Westerlea, include something similar to severe dyslexia that results in a failure to manage arithmetic, as well as difficulty grasping abstract ideas. The latter upset my parents unduly because each of the four Scottish Universities then in existence required a philosophy course as a requirement for an arts degree. Even after I passed my philosophy course with the help of extra tutoring I was still expected to understand discussions of politics and economics. I began to wish for a brain transplant so that I could become numerate and enter banking or accountancy. At other times, particularly when being bullied for lack of concentration or application, I thought I was either mentally deficient or would have been better off that way. At least a certifiable incompetence would have proved I was incapable of coping with subjects my parents and the educational establishment insisted were important.

It was not until I learned Transcendental Meditation that I was able to come to terms with my learning disabilities. TM gave me confidence in the skills I did have while at the same time it helped me to see parental intolerance for what it was. To put it another way, instead of being “cured” of my learning disabilities I was enabled, finally, to lose my obsession with them. At last I was able to see myself not as somebody incapable of coping with economics or politics, but as someone capable of other pursuits instead. I became a Gaelic scholar.

It was after learning TM that I went to Edinburgh University for Celtic Studies. I had learned Gaelic after my first degree, and with a background of English, French, and classics (and no distractions from subjects I was incapable of managing), it all came very easily. I attained full speaking, reading and writing ability in three years.

Learning to be Myself

Early on sex had been added, tacitly, to the long list of things I supposedly could not do. For a long time this was not an issue, since I was not attracted to girls; perhaps the knowledge that sex with other boys, and later with men at university was a crime might have suppressed my natural inclinations. After all these years it’s difficult to know. I suppose because I didn’t meet anyone who admitted to being gay I was indoctrinated into thinking that love for men was “unnatural” as well as criminal.

Not until 1974 in Edinburgh was I first aware of a gay rights demonstration. By then my perspective was so skewed I immediately got the idea that these were people getting jobs at the expense of the disabled and were probably anti-disabled themselves. This attitude persisted until 1983 when, settled into study, some freelance work, and some volunteer work I gradually forgot all about being homophobic. When I discovered that many of the scholars who had become my friends were gay, there seemed to be no point in snubbing them and losing their friendship.

In my late fifties, after the death of my mother, I first began to wonder if I might be gay myself. I mentioned it to a gay friend, asking if he knew of any gay groups. He was in the Gay Outdoor Club, whose swimming session I joined. Later I found good company at their socials, but the first real evidence that I was gay occurred one day in a straight sauna when another man invited me to share the shower with him. We went into a cubicle, where he started to massage his penis, then leant over and began doing the same to me, asking if I liked it. I said it was a new experience. It certainly felt nice, this first ever experience of sex with another person. I later decided that it must prove I was gay. Since my attitudes had been formed by those of my father’s generation, surely if I had been heterosexual I would have been shocked by his action, would have pushed him off and reported the “offense” to the staff.

The other incident, in fact my first experience of falling in love with somebody, followed my sending a piece to the Gay Outdoor Club newsletter about finding the Edinburgh branch of the club and learning to swim. I asked if anybody would like to get in touch, saying that if I was anything at all now I was probably gay. I got a reply from London (the friend with manic depression I referred to earlier). He said he was probably the same. I went to visit him, and as soon as I saw him, a tall young man in his late twenties, I found him attractive.

During an enjoyable weekend spent together we one afternoon found ourselves sitting in his flat wearing just T-shirts and shorts. I surrendered to a sudden urge to touch his leg, something that had never happened with anyone. He took my hand and we sat holding hands, then went into a cuddle. When it was time for me to return home I was almost in tears leaving him. In a letter thanking him for the weekend I asked if he would be willing to be my boyfriend, but he said that because of his depression he would be happier for us just to be friends. This proved to me that I really must have been gay all along. By the late ’ 90s it was, of course, perfectly safe to be that way. When we kissed on the train as I was leaving London, no railway official stopped us, something that would have happened in my younger days.

Going on from Here

There is a U.K. organization for gay disabled people, but being based in London it doesn’t really benefit Scotland, so I have become involved in a steering group established to bring gay disabled people together here. We meet alternately in Glasgow and Edinburgh. This is a form of socialization and, if you will, of education, for even among people with disabilities hierarchies and prejudices get in the way of communal feeling and the possibility of concerted action. Eli Clare writes, for example, that when among disabled people with severe mobility problems or those who use wheelchairs, she is out of the group, a “walkie”, and although this word isn’t used in the U.K., the attitude is the same.

Among wheelchair users I may be perceived as “too fit”, because I am on my feet and able to swim, although some disabled people may be inappropriately overawed by my university education. Different kinds of distinctions may exist among nondisabled people. Clare observes that among lesbians she is accepted as a writer; I have had similar experiences among abled gay men impressed by my involvement in Gaelic studies.

If my life has taught me anything it is that education is called for so that disabled people can enjoy wider acceptance, both among the general population and among their gay peers. Eli Clare observes that even in cosmopolitan New York City a man sitting down beside her on a bus might suddenly jump up when he perceives her athetoid disability. Sometimes, Clare maintains, adults will still stare at disabled people in public. When it happens in Britain nowadays it usually involves young children, whose parents will reprimand them.

My own experience has convinced me that it is parents who need the most education, in the private sphere as well as the public. They need to be shown that their children, particularly if they are disabled, should not be forced into opposite-sex relationships if they exhibit no such inclinations, nor should they be coerced into adopting stereotypical masculine or feminine attitudes that may be foreign to their natures.

My journey toward recognizing my essential nature has shown me how much damage stereotypes can inflict, how difficult it can be for people (even for parents) to see the person instead of the disability, how even one’s own perception of self can be disguised or distorted. It is late in life to “come out”. I wish there had been no necessity to do so.

Charles Coventry was born in 1943 near Glasgow, Scotland, with mild cerebral palsy. Now over sixty, he still does freelance work and volunteers in the community.

Editor's note: The full essay originally appeared in BENT: A Journal of CripGay Voices