Gwen Araujo

Who She Was

A message of acceptance, tolerance and love came through Thursday night, as the mother of a murdered transgendered teenager talked to a crowd in Heath Recital Hall in Beach Music Hall at Emporia State University.

The presentation by Sylvia Guerrero of Tracy, Calif., was moved from the Kanza Room in the Memorial Union to the larger Heath venue. The event was organized by People Representing Individuality and Diversity in Education (PRIDE) on campus.
Guerrero’s 17-year-old child, Gwen Amber Rose Araujo, was beaten to death at a party on Oct. 3, 2003, after it was discovered that Gwen was physically a man.

Gwen’s story was told in a Lifetime network movie, “A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story,” which won the 2007 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Movie for Television.

The assault on Gwen apparently erupted because two of the attackers had been sexually intimate with her, not realizing Gwen was transgendered — a person who has the physical attributes of one gender, but emotionally feels he or she is the opposite gender....

Sylvia Guerrero to speak at Emporia
Sylvia Guerrero is the mother of Gwen Araujo, who was murdered in 2002 for being transgendered. Guerrero not only shares the story of her daughter's life and death but also about civil rights in the LGBT community and against violence. Guerrero will speak April 23 at 7 p.m. in the Kanza Room of the Memorial Union in Emporia...

Student philanthropists grant money to Spindrift School of Performing Arts and others
When they learned through the results of a survey their peers were struggling with stress, violence, drugs and alcohol, a group of high school students came up with an innovative solution.

The collaborative project led by Youth Leadership Institute is called, Youth Innovation: Making Power and Community Trust (Y-Impact). Young people have been trained to evaluate mini-grant requests and fund $8,000 in mini-grants to their peers in schools and organizations in Pacifica and Daly City that support community health and/or youth leadership....

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