By Airam Fernández, from Santiago, Chile. The "Profesora Mara Rita" pre-university program is a unique experience in Chile. It functions as a course geared towards people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. It will soon celebrate its second anniversary, but the coordinating team decided to hold an early celebration with a gathering last week. They called it "Resonances" and intend to repeat it at least once a year to discuss pedagogy from a feminist perspective. The program is popularly known among the local LGBTQ+ community as the "Trans Pre-University," but it is named after Mara Rita, a trans teacher on the volunteer team who passed away last year. Here, trans people, transvestites, lesbians, gay men, and queer individuals come together to receive academic, social, and personal training. The goal is not only to prepare for the University Selection Test (PSU), but also to share experiences and life stories.

Learning to question

The Trans Pre-University Program fosters a space to question the local education system and hear testimonies from young people from various regions of the country. Specially invited to Santiago for the event celebrating its second anniversary, representatives from the Mocha Celis Trans Popular High School traveled from Buenos Aires. Among them were its director, Francisco Quiñones, and trans activist Alma Fernández, a graduate of the institution and president of the student body. “Mocha Celis was our first point of reference for this project. We only learned about their work two years ago from a young woman who is now one of our students. Since then, they have been a pure inspiration. We were finally able to meet and hear firsthand how they have been doing. It has been a constant learning experience,” she told [the organizers]. Present Andy Ko, one of the school's coordinators and workshop facilitators, added, “From the beginning, we were very clear that we wanted to distance ourselves from the traditional model of formal education and de-patriarchalize the classroom to create dynamics of popular education. We work by recognizing five structures of oppression: class, patriarchy, racism/colonialism, speciesism, and adultcentrism.”

Trans people in formal education

The event included discussions on public education, anti-racist pedagogies, decolonization, the role of lesbians in the feminist movement, and, of course, a panel dedicated to exploring the history of the Mocha Celis trans high school. Attendees included students from the university preparatory program, teachers, and students from the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Chile. Paris Sofía Catalina, 32, is one of the school's most motivated students. She moderated a panel discussion focusing on trans women and their experiences in formal education. “I remember having some very tyrannical teachers, some of whom still exist and behave the same way. They're just the kind of role models that keep multiplying. That's why I didn't want to study anymore. Then I went back to it, then I dropped out again, and I was like that for many years. It seems like education hasn't addressed these issues because it's still happening. So it's good news that we finally have a place like this pre-university program in Chile, for those of us who have suffered so much and never fit into traditional academic settings, but who still want to study,” she said.

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Another guest at this table was Scarlett Fernández, a trans activist from Arica, a city on the border with Peru. She was formerly a student leader in the memorable Penguin Revolution of 2006. Now she is involved with several organizations and facilitates workshops, in which she always makes a point of explaining why she dropped out of her Social Work degree after the first semester and why she returned two years later. “The professors didn't understand how a woman like me, who looks like this, could possibly want to be in a classroom at 8 a.m. I got tired of it, I left, but then years later I came back, after some very difficult personal times. Everything I learned during those days is what led me to the person I am today, very different from who I was before, who never questioned the hegemonic model and who understood femininity from a different perspective,” Scarlett told Present.

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Magdalena Fabbri is 26 years old, a psychologist, and works with the organization OTD from Concepción, a city in southern Chile, where she grew up. On the panel, she shared her transition process and spoke about how traumatic her life was until adolescence, due to attending an evangelical school, with memories of countless episodes of discrimination, bullying, sexual abuse, and even a suicide attempt. “My childhood experience was a ‘queer’ experience, not a ‘trans’ experience, as I believe happened to all of us here. That’s why we’ve suffered so much, but I think that from this perspective we can speak out to raise awareness and continue changing the world a little,” she told Present“I think it’s wonderful to be invited here to talk about pedagogy, but to do so, we have to question what that term means. Are we only talking about the classroom? Because, for example, something pedagogical for me was being on the streets when I was a teenager, being away from my family; that taught me much more than other experiences. Being reborn, going through life, that is pedagogical, and it doesn’t only happen in the classroom. I’m grateful that spaces like the one created by various organizations that work with diversity exist, and now by this pre-university program, but unfortunately, the classroom doesn’t save us, and that needs to be clear and always said,” Magdalena added.

“We are exposed to social transvesticide”

Francisco Quiñones, director of Mocha Celis, shares Magdalena's views: “After this gathering of Latin American strength, we see that there is a very big challenge, both for us in Argentina and for our fellow students in this pre-university program. We have to think about how to take these conversations to the streets and make sure that this truly contributes to breaking the statistic that trans people don't live past 35. Yes, for three or four hours a week here they feel very good, but when they leave they have to face everyday violence and everything that this implies.” Activist Alma Fernández added that this situation is what is called “social transvesticide”: “That's what we are exposed to. So it's a never-ending task, and it becomes even more difficult in a context that doesn't support us right now, neither there nor here, because there is no funding or state support.”

By lung capacity

The “Trans Pre-University Program” currently operates thanks to the volunteer work of workshop facilitators and teachers. Although its headquarters are at the University of Chile, it is not funded by the institution. The coordination team is evaluating fundraising strategies to maintain the program and supplement the symbolic contribution of those who enroll: 3,000 Chilean pesos (US$4). This year, 45 students enrolled. Last year there were 50. their Facebook page They will provide information about the upcoming registration process. The average age of the students ranges from 15 to 45 years old, with diverse and often difficult realities: some live on the streets, others work in prostitution. Many have already managed to enter university, Andy assured, but the goal in the community goes beyond the preparatory course: “It is not enough for us that they gain access to higher education. We are interested in them staying in school and obtaining a degree. Hopefully, this meeting and the next ones will be an additional motivation.”