Valeria Ricciardi went to high school in the late 1990s. At that time, school textbooks and typical drawings of the human body showed only two possibilities: a woman's body, a man's body, and an end.His - “We have a penis and two eggs. When I say these things, I say it lovingly because it's still loud.” - It was not represented in the classroom.Decades have passed since its absence, but few of them have changed.
Valeria is currently 37 years old and has several entries in her resume. It is “Former Big Brother 2015", which he did not want to be, but he does not deny it. It was the way he showed an ordinary trans girl (for example, the opposite of transgender people with genitals) interacting with heterosexual, white, and cisgender men (identifying themselves as men).
So she later made room for what she wanted to do to work as a journalist, actress, and dancer. In fact, in this last aspect, she danced naked in several prestigious stages, such as Teatro San Martín. “For what?” “It can be seen that women with penises also exist,” Valeria wrote in a note at the time. I replied that.
In this interview with Infobae Valeria, she takes a look at the topic and takes a look at it. We look at what she felt when she saw her body in the mirror during her childhood and adolescence and how important it was that she didn't have the love that told her “I love you but with quality”. He tells you why he bchose to show his body as it is and why he created a brand of underwear for trans women's bodies and transvestites “as is without illusions.”
I in front of the mirror
“I think it was Cris Miró or Flor de la V that can be seen in the media as a representative of trans people. The discourse that resonated at that time was “born in the wrong body.” , Desanda.
“But at the same time, it was not that I was unhappy with my body, but that society realized that there was a problem with my body. I didn't stand in front of the mirror and hate my genitals.”
As other transvestists and trans say, this did not happen to him looking for scissors and wanting to erase a penis that a girl or girl should not have. “I felt uncomfortable in the sense that I didn't feel hatred, but I didn't know if what was there was in line with me. At some point, I felt that I could enter society if I had surgery and got a vagina, but it lasted very short.” He continues.
It didn't last long and no sex reassignment surgery called vaginoplasty was performed. He always accompanied his family for two reasons and said, “It was because at the time of sexual arousal I was with someone who accepted my genitals as they were. I was lucky, it gave me security, and it seems fundamental to me. Because in that sexual arousal you can cross the road with someone who hurts your psyche, who says 'I love you but I love you with quality'.
And he adds: “I woke up to me when I met a boy a while ago, and he told me, 'What I like about you is that you can walk with you on the street, I know he's a compliment, but it's actually very violent.”
Her family accompanied her as much as possible. Even without the Internet, I was able to find other stories to listen and identify what was happening to Valeria with love and conversation. How did these differences allow you to insert yourself into this world, build your life, and avoid prejudice?
“Not only did there be no internet, but the books that existed were very biological. They immediately talked about sex reassignment surgery as a solution to the problem. I think this is the core of the problem. My parents have never seen it as a problem.”
However, in schools, transbodies did not exist in books or on blackboards or paintings. “No, even without a stick, ESI was Marimar.” It's a joke, but it was a TV show at the time. When the company of “female” wives went to school and separated the girls to tell and sell what would only happen to them: the menstrual trans male did not exist in that brotherhood.
Despite the existence of the Comprehensive Sex Education Act (ESI) for 15 years in Argentina, classes have resumed and the visibility of transgender trans institutions remains a debt in the classroom.
She explains to Infobae Gabriela Mansilla, the mother of Luana, the first trans girl in the United States who was able to change her name and gender in the DNI at the age of 6. Luana is already a teenager, a trans teenager who decided not to undergo hormonal therapy to prevent the development of male puberty and leave her body intact.
“Nothing has changed. The school does not have a book to see transvestites and trans bodies, and ESI has not yet been updated to this topic. In the last update of 2019, I named Trans Identity and Lohana Birkins (a reference to transgender groups) in adolescence, but I found that the bodies were not there.Menstruation continues to be attributed only to cis women, such as pregnancy.”
To cover that hole this year, Gabriela published a book called “A World Where Everyone Fits: ESI with a Transgender Transgender Perspective” (Chirimbote Publishing House). In the illustration there is a trans male body with scars from the vulva, vagina, uterus, ability to conceive and mastectomy (for those who decide to remove the breast). There are also bodies of transgender and trans female sex: girls, adolescents and adults with penis, testicles and fertility, sometimes with breast implants, and sometimes not.
Esconder, ¿Esconder?
Difficulties in recognizing when transgender and trans bodies were created by many people, felt or still feel the need to hide their genitals to fit stereotypes. Even if it causes pain, it hurts.
“If you think about it, you can't see transvestites and trans bodies in school textbooks, sex education prints, hospitals, or beaches in swimsuits. If you don't see your body, you think it doesn't exist or is wrong.” That is why in 2018 he created Naná, a brand of bombacha (sometimes called a string or a crook) designed for these bodies.
The idea was born after Valeria was summoned to perform a dance performance in which she had to open her legs. “I needed panties that I didn't miss anything when I lifted my legs a little more. The same was true when I wore a skirt. What I was looking for was a solution, not an illusion. It's a panty that doesn't hide anything and I don't say, 'If you wear this dress, you'll be a woman' or 'I'll be more woman'.” “, she explains.
She goes on to say: “These are panties designed for transvestites and trans who need special underwear to accept their bodies and take care of and protect what came with us.” “We have a penis and we have two eggs. I love you halfway because I'm still strong when I talk about things like this.”
For one of Naná's campaigns, Valeria created a T-shirt in which she made two breasts, a penis and two testicles with fruit, without showing transvestites or transbodies: 'Yes, here below, we are women with genitals, there is nothing to change, it is the most absurd to give too much value to the genitals”.
Some of these decisions, Valeria had a political position, and when she accepted the proposal of director Leticia Manjour to participate in a play called “Los huesos”, it lasted three years and she agreed to dance completely naked at the San Martin Theater, El Rojas and Recoleta Cultural Center.
“I thought it was a really cool idea. In theaters, our bodies were always sexual and were always seen as a phenomenon. Here it seemed just a different body, and it seemed revolutionary to me. Without saying anything, we told the public that 'these bodies exist'. In some functions, some people stopped and retired, but did not know why; or, for example, it was an uncomfortable play for some.” She says that she is currently rehearsing for an upcoming series on Netflix.
Of course, each person can or should be able to do everything he wants (surgery or not, hormone therapy). The interesting thing is that it does not feel like an obligation. “For me, it was important to make our bodies stand out so that we could be more free. So that a new generation can choose without feeling that someone is forcing them to look like for society to accept them.”
He knows that he still has debts (for example, to include the body through ESI). But others are already changing.
“The new generation no longer wants to be equal to the rest of the generation as I did when I was a child.” That's why we look for information beyond textbooks and raise the flag of difference. “Now, on Tik Tok, I see a lot of trans girls and transvestites showing themselves in ways I've never seen them before. 'They show off their bodies as they are and talk with pride. It looks beautiful to me.”
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