GEO stands in solidarity with our trans members and trans people across the country who are under attack by the recent wave of transphobic state legislation. Roughly 280 anti-trans bills have been filed for 2022, nearly double the number filed in 2021—which in turn was nearly double the number in 2020. These bills criminalize doctors who provide gender-affirming healthcare to trans teens and parents who seek such resources for their children; institutionalize bullying of trans students by excluding them from participating in sports that match their gender identity (including in Michigan); or ban classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in primary schools altogether. As educators, researchers, and workers—including future K-12 teachers and social workers—GEO members know that these bills are in direct opposition to learning, growth, and community-building. Furthermore, as a union committed to human rights, freedom of expression, and the well-being of all people, GEO condemns these harmful policies and all violence and repression directed at trans people.
Anti-trans legislation seeks to destroy the human right of self-determination. In the United States, enforcing a false, biologically essentialist gender binary means imposing highly specific ways of moving, speaking, dressing, working, and much more—all of which are based on arbitrary criteria rooted in white supremacy and settler colonialism. In a word, transphobia is authoritarianism. Transphobic vigilante violence is rampant in the United States, as is economic and police violence against trans people. These bills would directly expand state-sanctioned violence and likely expand vigilante violence as well.
Organized violence and repression against trans people have devastating effects. Research shows that a horrifying 82 percent of transgender people have considered suicide and 40 percent have attempted suicide, with these rates highest among transgender youth. A recent national survey found that 42 percent of LGBTQ youth “seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, including more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth.” Almost all LGBTQ people reported that politics had negatively impacted their mental health. To be clear, these mental health challenges have nothing to do with being trans, and have everything to do with transphobia. As Lazarus Nance Latcher writes, “Being transgender and queer did not make me suicidal and depressed—existing in a transphobic and homophobic world did.”
Transphobia is a crucial part of racism, sexism, classism, ableism, and the other oppressive systems that make up our world today. Those who are victimized through the intersections of these systems are made more vulnerable to their effects. For example, one in three Black trans youth has attempted suicide, and minoritized and disabled trans people are even more likely to live in poverty than trans people overall. Furthermore, anti-trans bills come from the same right-wing legislatures producing so-called “anti-critical race theory” bills designed to maintain white supremacy. As Talia Lavin writes, “bills that seek to suppress anti-racist education, anti-trans legislation that seeks to codify antiquated gender roles, and the severe and continual restriction of abortion rights in states with right-wing legislatures typify the ways hatred of gender nonconformity, a desire to control women’s bodies, and racism intermingle.” To fight against transphobia must also be to fight against all these forms of subjugation.
Trans people are forced to find ways to resist the organized violence of transphobia, and all cisgender people must join in that resistance. As the UM Queer Advocacy Coalition stated last year: “Now more than ever, cis people must stand up for the rights and dignity of their transgender peers. The solution is and must be intersectional solidarity, advocacy, and mutual aid. The trans community must not face these attacks alone.” Solidarity can take many forms, from supporting trans mutual aid funds, to fighting for broad access to high-quality gender-affirming care, to respecting people’s names and pronouns, to learning about trans experiences and their connection to the compulsory system of gender we must all navigate.
GEO invites all members, graduate students, and community members to join GEO’s trans health contract working group to help find ways that we as a union can better support our trans comrades during the coming bargaining year and, in doing so, build a better campus and world for all of us. To get involved, email secretary@geo3550.org!
Co-signed by:
Nithya Arun, President of Central Student Government
Carla Voigt, Vice President of Central Student Government
Payment for Placements (P4P) at the University of Michigan
Spencer Hall, Co-president of QAC
Yang Shichang, Co-president of QAC
Tess Brieva, Community Outreach Chair of QAC
Sponsored by:
Rackham Student Government
Women of Color and the Academy (WOCATA)
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