May 10, 2022

11:05

Marcela Leiros – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The mission of motherhood brings, daily, challenges and difficulties that are overcome with strength, dedication and much love. In many families, motherhood is permeated by diversity and is out of the socially pre-established standards, but it doesn’t stop giving love and shelter. This is what inspires mothers from the LGBTQIA+ community (acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transvestite, trans, queer, intersex, asexual, and others).

Project assistant at the LGBT+ shelter Casa Miga, Iara Fernandes, alongside her partner Karen Arruda, knows what it’s like to deal with these challenges on a daily basis. Together for four years, they have raised six children. Two girls, ages 7 and 16, are biological daughters. But the other four, already adults, are children “of the heart”. The challenge is even greater, but not impossible, due to the fact that the children “of heart” are transsexuals and transvestites, and due to the prejudice they face, as she told CENARIUM.

“We can’t really explain these things of the heart,” she said, struggling to find the right words. “We know that there are problems in society, but being close to them, living them, witnessing them, changes things, because it is one thing to know, but it is another to live these problems up close. To feel the pain of these people, the abandonment, the neglect. We became attached to them”.

About raising her youngest daughter alongside another woman, Iara says that the beginning was difficult, but the maternal instinct to protect from attacks makes her fight.

“Their father didn’t accept it very well, and so did their families. As much as some people don’t tell us what they really think about the situation, we feel the looks, we hear something here and there that ends up revealing what people feel. There are differences of opinion at home, because I am the biological mother and I am very supportive. And how I want them to be raised, educated, sometimes it is also a problem. But today it has improved a lot”, she highlighted.

Mothers for Love

Karen Arruda, project director of Casa Miga and president of the Manifesta LGBTQIA+ Association, shares, besides her life, her work alongside her partner. She told CENARIUM about the welcoming of her adult children, who are between 23 and 36 years old.

“We ended up finding trans people who, in some way, needed help, who could not afford to support themselves, pay rent. They didn’t have the option to go to the homes of relatives, parents, because it was a violent situation. We ended up welcoming them and opened the doors of the house. They are three transvestites and a trans boy”, she explained, while telling us how they became mothers of four more children.

Of the older children, the first was welcomed in September last year and the others came in succession: another in November, and two others arrived in January and February. “We formed a family bond, because just as we help them, they also help us a lot. It is a very strong bond, even if they leave and go on with their lives, with their corner, the family bond remains. We all are not accepted 100% by our families, so in life you meet people who become family,” he added.

Teaching for life

About raising her daughters in a non-traditional family, Iara says that the daily objective is to teach them to respect others. “I believe very much in people’s truths, I try not to repress them, not to stop talking about what it is to live in this LGBT community. They are very enlightened about these things,” she said.

Karen remembered that the relationship with Sarah and Sofia is one of care, affection, and conversation. According to her, the relationship with her wife never needed to be explained and the relationship with the other siblings is natural.

“They understand, because they are already used to the way we are. We are very helpful, and they participate and help. They see them as brothers, and they have this bond too, they have this attachment. We try to teach them to see the human being as a human being, regardless of any other difference this person may have”, Karen concluded.