By Kelsey Rogers, Asst. News Editor
The Center for Diversity and Inclusion held a student Let’s Talk panel for transgender visibility day on March 26 in the Benjamin Apple meeting rooms.
Moderated by senior Kerry Lewis, students in the transgender community opened the floor for individuals to ask questions about their experiences at Susquehanna and questions regarding gender and transgender culture.
Along with Lewis, the panel featured seniors Bella Lucero and Drew Mahoney and first-years Lia Taylor and Grady Curtis.
Audience members were invited to submit questions anonymously to the panel by writing them down on note cards. The opening question regarded the correlation between gender expression and gender identity.
“Gender expression and identity is so vast that it’s so limiting to being one or the other,” Lucero said.
“It’s a colorful array of things in between,” she said.
Taylor bounced off of that thought by explaining that gender expression and gender identity are two different things, referencing how they sometimes dress in a way that is stereotypically feminine.
“Sometimes I wear a dress. It doesn’t make me any less valid,” Taylor said.
Lucero and Taylor began to discuss their experiences coming out as trans and how Susquehanna has played a role in that experience. Lucero said she came out recently during this school year, so her experience is very recent.
“There’s a difficulty navigating that transition with friends and professors,” she said.
Taylor said that they knew they were trans since they were 15 years old, but they live in a rural area in central Pennsylvania that is not very diverse. When they came to Susquehanna in the fall, Taylor said it was easier because it was a regionally diverse group of people.
Lewis addressed the issue of transmedicalism, which they defined as the idea that being trans is a mental illness or that an individual needs to transition fully to be considered trans.
“There’s so much more about me. I’m so much more of a complex person but I get reduced to this identity,” Lewis said. “I like video games, writing. I like math.”
Taylor later said that they have been told that they are ‘not trans enough’ because they are not starting hormone treatment.
“I have been told that I’m faking it and that I’m not valid,” they said.
When asked about the improvements that Susquehanna could make for trans students on campus, multiple panelists addressed the lack of genderneutral bathrooms.
Lewis said that there is always the anxiety of wondering if people will say something about them using the bathroom and that sometimes they have to evaluate what is safer for them at the moment.
Lucero said that there is a mental play on if a person in the bathroom is going to identify her in the right way.
“Being trans in a public space is always being aware that you’re trans,” she said.
Curtis said that he fought for the gender-neutral bathrooms placed in Smith Hall to be unlocked for use.
Curtis said that there is no bathroom exclusively for transgender students.
“Take a second to remember things we can actively change in this school. They’re not super difficult,” he said.
Mahoney said that the concept of trans students participating in athletics has not been talked about and that it needs to be.
“Either you come out as trans and you quit, or you just don’t come out,” he said.
For closing thoughts, the panelists all emphasized that trans people are normal people.
“We’re a variation of the norm, but we’re not freaks,” Lewis said.
Lucero said that the trans community was here and that it wasn’t going away.
“We deserve the same basic human kindness,” she said.
“Be conscious in how you interact with people. Being aware, that’s what’s important,”Lucero continued.