{"id":7073,"date":"2020-07-14T17:23:38","date_gmt":"2020-07-15T01:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/?p=7073&lang=en"},"modified":"2020-07-14T19:28:06","modified_gmt":"2020-07-15T03:28:06","slug":"shantal-munguia-the-first-transgender-woman-journalist-in-honduras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/women\/shantal-munguia-the-first-transgender-woman-journalist-in-honduras\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Shantal Munguia: The First Transgender Woman Journalist in Honduras"},"content":{"rendered":"

By EntreMundos<\/strong><\/p>\n

EntreMundos Magazine met Shantal Munguia at the screening of the documentary m\/f\/x, organized by Hivos Guatemala, which had a presentation in the city of Quetzaltenango, directed by Koen Suidgeest, a production that presents the life experiences and opportunities of three trans people from different parts of the world, that teaches us that a more tolerant, inclusive and just society should exist.<\/p>\n

EM: Can you tell us Who is Shantal Munguia?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shantal<\/strong>: She\u2019s a transgender woman who has tried to survive a classist, sexist, conservative society, and with few opportunities.\u00a0 Shantal is someone who struggles, not for fame but for equality as human beings, that we all be treated the same way.\u00a0 She\u2019s a woman who wants to generate a change in the mentality so that we have the same opportunities, and so that being a transgender woman doesn\u2019t mean you have to be marginalized, and disqualified from the work that you choose.<\/p>\n

EM: <\/strong>How did your transition go and how did you explain to your friends and family what was happening?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shantal: <\/strong>It was something as difficult for me as it was for my parents and siblings. The transition was during the time of my adolescence.\u00a0 The process was based on a hormone treatment.\u00a0 I was afraid to really express what I was and how I felt, because it\u2019s something that is frowned upon in my country.\u00a0 There\u2019s discrimination because of your way of being, acting, and thinking.\u00a0 Going to study or going to a place and feeling comfortable was something difficult, because there\u2019s rejection\u2026 you\u2019re an object of ridicule.\u00a0 There\u2019s physical and psychological mistreatment.<\/p>\n

EM: Tell us about an average day in your life<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shantal: <\/strong>My life is a little boring (amid laughter).\u00a0 A normal day for Shantal is getting up, brushing my teeth, taking a bath, making my bed;\u00a0 if I have an interview or something to do for work I go out and do it.\u00a0 Once in a while I go out and spend time with friends.\u00a0 I like to dedicate a little time to my partner to be happy.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have a party life.\u00a0 I prefer more intimate things.\u00a0 I love to share conversations where you know people better.<\/p>\n

EM: How did your career begin and what motivated you to become a journalist?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shantal:<\/strong> I started studying Foreign Languages, but while I was advancing I felt that it wasn\u2019t for me. And slowly I realized that I wanted to be a journalist.\u00a0 Now I want to show people that I\u2019m a professional journalist, and that I\u2019ve struggled to study.\u00a0 I want people to change those mistaken ideas about trans people.<\/p>\n

My profession has given me many opportunities, it\u2019s opened other kinds of spaces, to change thoughts and show that we\u2019re prepared people, that we study and that we\u2019re here to serve others and be that bridge between diversity and society, and gaining in this way the respect of many educators and colleagues.<\/p>\n

EM: What was it like studying as the first trans person at the university?\u00a0 What did it feel like to be the first trans woman graduated with a degree in journalism at the National Autonomous University of Honduras?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shantal:<\/strong> I came to the university expressing myself as I am, with my different clothing.\u00a0 It was like breaking and facing the stereotypes.\u00a0 However it was something very difficult, like everything in Honduras.\u00a0 At the university I suffered from discrimination as much from the students as from the educators.\u00a0 I was the brunt of jokes.\u00a0 I remember one occasion where I agreed to participate in a beauty pageant.\u00a0 They told me that it was a lack of respect.\u00a0\u00a0 Feeling that rejection from my colleagues was something very hard, but this catapulted me as Shantal Munguia after being on national and international news as the trans woman who wanted to participate in a beauty pageant.\u00a0 I only wanted to be part of it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to be able to say that it was a great experience and that I didn\u2019t have any problems, but it wasn\u2019t like that.\u00a0 And although in life you find obstacles there will always be a way to overcome them.\u00a0 I think that it was the first time that a trans person was seen at the public university, but what interested me was studying, improving myself, and giving an impression different from what everyone thought.\u00a0 After everything, graduation day came and I felt very proud of receiving my university degree.\u00a0 In Honduras there are no gender identity laws so the degree has my legal name.\u00a0 However, in the ceremony I received my degree as Shantal Manguia, the first transgender woman graduated with a degree in journalism.<\/p>\n

EM: Has it been difficult to develop your career in the field of communication?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shantal:<\/strong> Yes it\u2019s been difficult because it\u2019s been difficult to be taken as a professional.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to be taken as a transgender woman who always presents sexual or erotic subjects, or about prostitution, because I\u2019m not a sexologist.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want them to stick me with only one thing.\u00a0 I think that I have the capacity to inform about other areas of interest that I can feature.<\/p>\n

EM: What do you think about the situation with discrimination, harassment, and exclusion that sexually diverse people experience in your country?\u00a0 (and specifically trans people)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shantal:<\/strong> When someone is different, it means that this person will be rejected, and that has made lots of trans people get involved in sex work.\u00a0 Many other trans women are compelled to flee the country because there\u2019s no access to dignified work nor guarantees to express your gender identity.\u00a0 We still live in a conservative society.\u00a0 There\u2019s discrimination in the streets.\u00a0 You\u2019re seen as a sexual object, to satisfy a desire.\u00a0 The harassment toward a trans person is experienced daily on hearing ridicule as much from men as from women.\u00a0 Exposing yourself to so many pejorative comments that it hurts to hear.\u00a0 And in addition to that there are crimes and physical abuse.\u00a0 You run the risk of being murdered.\u00a0 In Honduras there are high rates of murders and hate attacks toward trans people and everything goes unpunished.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Shantal and coworkers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

EM: You currently work on a television show dealing with issues of sex education and the LGTBTIQ community.\u00a0 How is Honduran society perceiving and reacting to these matters?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shantal:<\/strong> It\u2019s a totally different program.\u00a0 We speak openly about taboo subjects like sexuality, the LGTBTIQ community, STDs, early teen pregnancies and other similar subjects.\u00a0 Many people don\u2019t have information about these things, because there\u2019s simply no sex education at home or in education centers.\u00a0 The program is directed toward adolescents and adults because they\u2019re subjects that are necessary to address and because many have questions.\u00a0 We create this platform so that it gets replicated since the subjects are provided by professionals like psychologists, sexologists, and doctors who specialize in these matters.<\/p>\n

EM: Any anecdote or experience you want to tell us about as a journalist<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shantal:<\/strong> I auditioned for the documentary m\/f\/x<\/em>, and my story made quite an impact on the directors, from my professional development to my transition.\u00a0 It was cool because I involved my work as a journalist and it was very satisfying to me to be able to tell my life story on an international level.\u00a0 I learned other stories in different contexts, and I realized that in the end one thing united us.\u00a0 And that is we fight for inclusion, because we want to be accepted as who we are.\u00a0 This gives a voice to others in the community who don\u2019t have it or are unable to do it.<\/p>\n

EM: What would you say to LGTBIQ people, who like you, want to pursue their dreams?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shantal: <\/strong>That nothing in life is easy, but neither is it impossible.\u00a0 If I achieved it anyone can.\u00a0 My message is for everyone reading the article, without distinction of sex or race.\u00a0 I think that we have the same opportunities and abilities to move forward.\u00a0 It fills us with satisfaction as human beings, the power to express ourselves and support one another.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By EntreMundos EntreMundos Magazine met Shantal Munguia at the screening of the documentary m\/f\/x, organized by Hivos Guatemala, which had a presentation in the city of Quetzaltenango, directed by Koen Suidgeest, a production that presents the life experiences and opportunities of three trans people from different parts of the world, that teaches us that a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":7062,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[455,427,1806,422,438],"tags":[2205,2207,2198,2206,2209,2208],"class_list":["post-7073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pagetwo-en","category-public-figures","category-social-situation","category-women","category-youth","tag-documentary-m-f-x","tag-lgtbtiq-community","tag-shantal-munguia","tag-transgender","tag-transgender-journalist","tag-trasgender-honduras"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/shantal-1.jpeg?fit=1080%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7ljt7-1Q5","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9483,"url":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/frontpage-en\/segundo-lugar-del-concurso-cartas-a-la-revista-entremundos\/?lang=en","url_meta":{"origin":7073,"position":0},"title":"Second place of the contest \u00abLetters to EntreMundos Magazine\u00bb","author":"EntreMundos","date":"25 enero, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Jos\u00e9 Erwin Maldonado Olintepeque, Quetzaltenango \u00a0 Dear all: Wishing you the best of days, after learning about the 20th anniversary of Entremundos Magazine, I extend my sincere congratulations for such a noble, dedicated and professional work that you do through this magazine that, in my opinion, is one of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"En \u00abFrontPage\u00bb","block_context":{"text":"FrontPage","link":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/category\/frontpage-en\/?lang=en"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/269943850_5093669063977789_6743982736442317436_n.jpg?fit=673%2C452&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/269943850_5093669063977789_6743982736442317436_n.jpg?fit=673%2C452&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/269943850_5093669063977789_6743982736442317436_n.jpg?fit=673%2C452&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4540,"url":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/politics\/the-migrant-caravan-and-the-murder-of-a-saudi-journalist\/?lang=en","url_meta":{"origin":7073,"position":1},"title":"The migrant caravan and the murder of a Saudi journalist","author":"EntreMundos","date":"19 octubre, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Jamal Khashoggi\u2019s murder by a US ally has sparked outrage in the US, but dozens of journalists murdered under US-backed regimes in Honduras go unnoticed. 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