Gina Juliana Castañeda is the first transgender woman to graduate as a lawyer in the department of Santander, in 2021. A professional and personal career framed by the defense and promotion of the rights of the LGBTIQA+ population in the city of Bucaramanga. Currently, in her position as legal advisor of the Centro Intégrate, her efforts are aimed at promoting inclusion and dignifying the lives of Venezuelan refugee and migrant communities.
Gina left her native Barranquilla when she was only five years old, to settle with her family in a conservative territory. With nostalgia, she remembers arriving in the municipality of Floridablanca, and the way in which culture and customs permeated her reality, since, at an early age, age, I was already aware that it was not easy to talk about gender identities and sexual education, even more so, as a person from another city.
At the dawn of her adolescence, she began her process of identity construction. Her parents were a key part in this important decision, accepting and accompanying her every step, forging in Gina the values of inclusion, respect and dignity of other people; teachings that led this Santanderean by adoption to become the first transgender female lawyer to graduate from a university in the department of Santander.
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