UA Brings 'Transgender Awareness Week' to LU

By Ashley Bowles
Rotunda Reporter During the week of November 16- 20 Unity Alliance (UA), an campus organization that reaches out to the Longwood University lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender (LBGT) community, hosted multiple events in honor of Transgender Awareness Week. The events were put together to raise awareness of transgender and their journey. Members of Unity Alliance and allies changed their Facebook gender for the week to honor those who have been victims of hate and give support to those who are still struggling. When a girl would update "her" status the website would read it as "he" updated his status.

"This was UA's first Transgender Awareness Week, but we are hoping to make it an annual thing in honor of Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20th - before this week not much had been said about the Transgender population on campus or trans individuals at all except for our guest speaker last spring Debra Davis who was a male to female transgender," explained UA Public Relations Chair Tracie Morris.

On Friday afternoon, as the sun was beginning its slow descent, the members of Unity Alliance placed tape over their mouths to honor those who have been silenced due to hate crimes. Their simple white T-shirts simply said "The 'T' is NOT silent" on the back while "LBGT" decorated the front. The members approached people as they walked past, handing out little index size pieces of paper and a ribbon of pastel blue and pink. The pieces of paper each contained a photo and background of a person who was a victim of hate crimes because of a choice they made. One story was of Michael Hunt of Indianapolis, Indiana, who was shot to death on December 26, 2008. It is believed that even though he was not a transgender he was murdered because his girlfriend, who was also found dead, was. This is how Unity Alliance's Hour of Silence began. While members gave the slips of paper and ribbon to passerby's two other spoke into a microphone, the names and the stories of people who have been victims of hate crimes.

Earlier in the week a movie was shown, titled "She's a Boy I Knew," a story depicting the journey that one boy went through when he decided he wanted to change his gender. "I thought that the movie was very insightful into the struggles that transgenders face on a day-to-day basis. I, personally, am straight so this week was very eye opening for me. I know realize that being transgendered as a lot harder than just being gay or lesbian," said Cunninghams Resident Assistant Alex Lowman. "A lot of people have asked why we felt it was important to have a week just for the trans community and I think it was important because not many people understand the concept of being transgender, even people in the LGBTQ community don't fully understand and often leave out the Transgender population," said Morris.

That Thursday night, November 19, a panel was held for people to ask questions and for the panelists to share their stories. Longwood students Lauren Camacho and Coy Huges shared their stories with the audience. The first subject to be brought up was the difference between gender and sexuality: sexuality has to do with who you are attracted to, whereas gender has to deal with how you feel about yourself. They then moved onto coming out to their parents. "With my mom I didn't have to say anything. she kind of assumed, correctly, which is nice," said Camacho. The conversation then turned to assumptions that people make of transgenders; the misconception is that all transgender people want to get the sex change surgery or people are not sure which pronoun to use when addressing a transgender person. "Dealing with using the right pronouns can be frustrating at times because people want to call you one thing and you would prefer that people call you another. It can all be very confusing.If I have trouble with determining someone's appropriate pronouns, I should just ask instead of make up my own," said Lowman.

The next question dealt with relationships and how they dealt with it, and how their partners were dealt with it as well. "We were dating kinda before this whole thing came up and I started dealing with it and now that I am dealing with it she's ok with it," said Hughes. The panel shared their stories, realization moment, and their trails with the audience. "T only encompasses less than 1 percent of the world population, that means they have to educate 99 percent of the world, GLB is only about 10 percent, so UA has a lot of educating to do - it is important for these people to be recognized, not just in the LGBTQ community, but in general, they're people too," concluded Morris.