Tatiana de la tierra

tatiana de la tierra (1961-2012) was a Latina lesbian writer born in Colombia, and the creator of the first international Latina lesbian magazine Esto no tiene nombre; the magazine was distributed in various parts of the United States and to many Latin American countries - like de la tierra's homeland, Colombia. Much of her writing was bilingual and bicultural - featuring both the English and Spanish language - and contained very sexual content. Through her work, de la tierra gave voice to LGBTQ people of color, and inspired other writers to speak about sex and sexuality in a very honest and shameless manner.

tatiana de la tierra was born in Villavicencio, Colombia on May 14, 1961, and she emigrated from Colombia to the United States in 1969 at the age of eight. de la tierra and her family settled in Homestead, Florida when they arrived in the US, and that was where de la tierra first discovered her passion for books and librarian work. She befriended the head librarian at the elementary school she attended in Homestead, and volunteered at the library. She was trusted by the head librarian so much that she was given a key to the back room where all the sexuality books were kept, and she would peek at these books that contained pictures of genitalia at a young age. Although de la tierra did not come out as lesbian until 1982, she knew she was attracted to females around the time she reached age 10 or 11. When de la tierra was young, she would explore the female body by creating games to play with some of her girl friends that included looking at each other's nipples and vaginas. However, when she became a teen de la tierra desexualized herself because some of her friends and peers made her feel like a freak and outsider for being curious about her sexuality. From then on, de la tierra only had secret crushes on girls; she did not have any romantic partners while growing up. It wasn't until de la tierra graduated from South Dade High School in 1979 and went off to college, that she began exploring her sexual preferences once more.

Although she was aware of her sexuality from a very young age and it later became a very important part of her career as a writer, de la tierra fell in love with poetry before even reading the work of any lesbian writers. Around the time that she was 11, de la tierra read Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Renascence" and was instantly hooked onto poetry.

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