The “T” in LGBT tends to be overshadowed.
The LGBT Center has held a SafeZone and a Dine-n-Discuss to examine what it means to be trans identified and the issues trans individuals might face.
Ohio University didn’t add gender identity into its discrimination clause until 2008, 28 years after adding sexual orientation. Now, students and faculty members at OU have found a community of their own.
Delfin Bautista, director of the LGBT Center, said those events are a good opportunity for students to see that each story is unique.
“Not all trans people transition in the same way,” Bautista said. “Not everyone revolves around surgery.”
Jesper Beckholt, a senior studying creative writing, identifies as gender queer, which means not as a man or as a woman, and finds the focus on trans people’s bodies to be upsetting.
“My experience as a trans person is not all about hormones and surgeries and that kind of stuff,” Beckholt said.
Beckholt came out at the end of their freshman year of college after finding a trans community on the website Tumblr.
“Tumblr has been really cool because there is a large trans community on there and a lot of non-binary and gender queer people,” Beckholt said. “Getting to talk to them and not just see a definition but see actual people helped me realize, ‘Oh, OK — I think I’m that too.’”
However, there are still some issues faced such as explaining to people which pronoun to use.
“I’ve never had anybody be particularly rude but people do screw up the pronouns a lot,” Beckholt said. “Accidents happen.”
Professors sometimes just don’t understand the situation, which becomes a source of anxiety for Beckholt, they said.
“Sometimes you just don’t want to have to have that talk with your professor,” Beckholt said.
Bautista said it can be hard for students to have to always be the educator.
“Sometimes you just want to go to class and go to class,” Bautista said. “Sometimes you just want to be a student.”
Jaylynne N. Hutchinson, an associate professor in cultural studies in education, spoke at the LGBT Center’s Dine-n-Discuss last week about being a trans individual and how that journey has unfolded.
“All of us as human beings are at different stages of identity-development and growth,” Hutchinson said. “Some trans individuals have a very supportive relationship within the LGBT community and others may not.”
Despite society still having confusion about what it means to be a part of the trans community, progress is being made through trans characters on television shows and advocates for more gender-neutral spaces, Bautista said.
“We’re getting there,” Bautista said.
sm559111@ohiou.edu
@sophie_mitchem
