A Clearing in the Forest

When I first came out as transgender in the spring of 2009, I didn’t really know what it meant beyond the academic definition of the word. I knew that this fit me, this was a good way to describe who I was. That summer, as I lived on campus to do classwork, I wondered whether or not I should come out to my roommate. He was an early freshmen and I don’t know what all they teach in high school these days, but I’m pretty sure Queer Theory isn’t one of the subjects. It’s a very hard sell to get taxpayer dollars used to teach people about LGBT things- despite the fact that the taxes are going to be deducted irregardless. We live very much in a heteronormative world and while this often doesn’t have consequences for people in their everyday lives, for me it meant that I had to wait 27 years until I found out who I was and then I had to go through the process of deciding who I want to share this aspect of myself with.

As it turns out, I didn’t come out to my roommate that summer. He knew that I was a person who enjoyed watching professional wrestling from Japan and that I drank exactly one bottle of Propel every day, but other than that, not much disclosure happened. I tried out my bras in secret with the curtains drawn and scheduled an appointment to get hair removed from my face without telling anyone- even my family.

The appointment didn’t work out because I couldn’t afford it and I still haven’t found a bra that fits me. However, over time, I’ve become more comfortable coming out to others.

We had an LGBT group on campus whose name involves an acronym within an acronym. This was the place that I was directed to seek as a support system and it was the first place where I came out in front of a large group. I was really shy at the time and I felt uncomfortable hearing all the other people introduce themselves as gay or lesbian or bisexual. There was variation within sexual object choice, but there was not variation within gender identification; I was the only self-identified transgender person there. It was not without difficulty that I came out to those people because- despite the fact that they were the campus’ only support group- I didn’t know how they would react to me. It was unknown territory for me as well as them and for a while, it was as though we were lost in a forest without a compass or a map.

At the time, I knew very little about the dynamics of a student group, but I have since learned that such groups exist mostly for socialization. This has to do with the priorities of the individuals involved. Freshmen coming to college are still stuck in the whole high school mindset where people were ranked according to their popularity. To some extent, this mindset exists in the “adult” world as well. Consequently, the goal for a lot of college students is to become popular- both to satisfy their desire to be well-liked among their peers and to ascend to the highest social position they can. All of this is well and good, but it ignores the question that all LGBT people (especially transgender people)- why are we discriminated against?

As I explored my options for housing on campus, I discovered that the university I attend- Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania- was not going to allow women to live together in the same dorm room with men. I tried to explain to them that I did not consider myself male and that the university would in fact be placing a woman together with a woman. This is how the university started out, ironically enough. The problem lies in their perception of what is a woman and what is a man. In my journey to discover what the word transgender means, I suddenly found myself holding a very radical opinion that seemed ahead of its time. I learned that not everyone viewed gender the same way and a further revelation occurred, though it should have been obvious had I thought about it: not everyone is taught the same things.

This also applies to our LGBT group on campus. My presence in the group seems to have informed them more about what transgender issues are and there have been more gender variant people in the group since I first came out to them two years ago. However, in many ways, they are still behind in recognizing how transgender people are treated, how we expose ourselves to risk on a daily basis simply by being who we are. The most recent case that comes to mind is an incident where a transwoman was attacked by two younger people for trying to use a bathroom. Out of all the letters in the alphabet soup that is LGBTQIA (and more), the T seems to be the most invisible. I didn’t realize how my act of coming out and standing up would change things at the time. I just wanted to be able to talk about this to someone who wasn’t a therapist.

I’ve been told that I have challenged the university on many levels, and I’ve also heard that they needed to be challenged. I also learned that quite a bit of university policy is influenced by advice the university receives from their legal counsel. I would like to call it rule-mongering, except the word monger has a somewhat negative connotation. Instead, they are often behind because the law itself is behind. The university I attend does not make a point of being progressive and making common sense decisions to protect students who need protected. It does not come from a willful malignant attitude of minority issues, but rather a passive ignorance of not knowing what the proper course of action is. Their attitudes can only be changed through people coming out, expressing the difficulties they encounter, and challenging the current power structure at every turn.

I’ll give an example of why I believe this to be true. It is largely opinion, and there are no studies that I know of which confirm what I’m saying. Mostly, though, I don’t pay attention to studies anyway.

People in positions of power, whether that be the president of a university or the president of a student group, will often be resistant to change because the structure as it is has benefited them to the point where they now have this position. For them, the system works and to change the system would be to change the very thing that benefited them in the first place. Most politicians run on a platform of change because it’s what everyone wants to see; in reality, though, things mostly stay the same from year to year. Republicans marginalize and discriminate while Democrats (the men at least) can’t keep their pants on. Examples of moral leadership are few and far between these days.

As a consequence, our societal system has a lot of problems. We passively or actively oppress others and others passively or actively oppress us. The individual human experiences life only through their own eyes and thus values themselves more than others. Because of this, people want power for themselves and not for others. In searching for such power, people disregard the needs of others or exploit other people they haven’t even met in order to gain their power. Since the self is held at greater value than another person, it doesn’t seem morally wrong to do this. Other people are “less good” or “less valuable” or less anything, so their needs don’t have to be taken into consideration. This is how the majority of humanity existed until the rise of a literate, educated culture existed where challenges could be placed at the door of the traditional way of doing things.

Thomas Jefferson was the first American leader to suggest a public school system, though it wasn’t until transportation improved that more people were attending institutes of higher learning. Higher learning in American society led to the challenge of racist policy, to the formation of Feminism, to the establishment of Queer Theory as an academic discipline and finally to the internet where anyone can learn anything they want provided they have time and patience.

With the many challenges to social inequalities has come an advancement towards treating everyone the same. But we’ve only challenged the institutional barriers people face. We aren’t actively challenging what beliefs cause a person to discriminate against others or why a person who might be gay-identified would still be transphobic. The reason, as with most things, comes from a lack of education, a lack of awareness about these issues. If not learning about LGBT issues in high school would increase the likelihood of a person growing up to be a homophobic fool, then why do we not insist that LGBT issues are taught in classrooms? Why do our leaders even go so far as to pass a bill that forbids Queer Theory education in classrooms?

Fortunately, rather than trivializing the LGBT rights cause, legislation such as this only more firmly reinforces the need for education to end the bigotry. Queer Theory is now being taught in the periphery; it’s a subject that is seeping into the mainstream culture through the use of LGBT characters on shows targeted towards a younger audience. Here’s an example.

The situation that exists, then is one of idealogical conflict between society’s leadership and the majority of people who are influenced by their decisions. Conservative politicians dare to appear out of touch with what’s happening in the country at the expense of the rights of LGBT people. It’s not the first time, nor will it be the last. Conservative politicians took the wrong side in the Civil Rights struggle and they have continually taken the wrong side on women’s issues- such as the issue of whether or not to fund Planned Parenthood, an organization that strives to provide reproductive health services for women. Their argument is that taxpayer dollars are not supposed to be used to fund abortions. This is already against the law under Title X of the Public Health Service Act.

All of this has a trickle-down effect. When people say that Shippensburg is a conservative university, what they really mean is that they are behind the times, they discriminate against minority groups and prefer to give opportunities to people with wealth rather than those without. These are some of the basic tenets that most conservative politicians hold true to.

On an individual level, it meant for me that I had to spend two years meeting with the administrators of the university in an attempt to receive the same benefit in campus housing that everyone else has: the ability to use a bathroom with people of the same identified gender and to share living quarters with the same.

Eventually, we settled on something of a compromise, which is still an ongoing process. I now live in a medical single room with its own bathroom. The Dean of Students at the university declared, in open defiance of university policy, that he would allow me to have the room at the normal rate which people with medical disabilities would receive them. Whether this decision will cost the individual his job or not remains to be seen.

The point that I’m making here is that we, as members of minority groups, have to go this far because no one else is doing it for us. Our limited time on this planet is consumed with making sure that we are safe and that we enjoy the privileges that others have automatically. There is, however, a reward for doing so. I have found that I have become more empathic towards other people and that I am more willing to help people than I used to be. Having been put in a situation where I sought help and did not receive it, I now find myself more motivated to help others.

I do not suggest that serving others should be the guiding principle of one’s life; unpaid and required labor is a form of slavery. Instead, we ought to live in such a way that we do not pass up the chance to enable others to live a better life if we have the chance to do so. We should consider that other people matter just as much as we do. To reduce the status of another person is to reduce us all.