On Monday, February 22 award-winning, transgender writer and public health consultant Willy Wilkinson gave a speech in the Hub on behalf of the LGBTQA Student Resource Center. Wilkinson specializes in transgender issues and is trained in consulting community health organizations, businesses, and educational institutions to provide equal access for the LGBT community. He is experienced in working with communities of color, substance users, sex workers, youth, and disable individuals. Willy Wilkinson promoted his recent book Born on the Edge of Race and Gender: Viewing Trans Justice with an Intersectional Lens, in which he writes about his experiences of being a biracial, trans male and the inequality present in society.

Wilkinson not only discussed his personal experience, but took an educator role as he gave his lecture. He was very interactive with the audience, asking if anyone could define “Intersectionality”, which he described is the overlapping of social identities such as race, gender, and class, and how they create systems of discrimination or disadvantage. He not only talked about his experience as a trans male, but also his experience of being an Asian American man. Willy Wilkinson read an excerpt of his book about “monoracial bonding”. The story was about an encounter he had with an Asian woman in a grocery line who made a remark about his mixed daughter having white physical traits just as her own daughter had, but the woman suggested the presence of these features was negative. He went on to say that this woman was trying to bond with him over their shared Asian heritage as if it were superior, with the woman assuming he was fully of Asian descent.

Willy Wilkinson also went into the reality of inequality in society for those who are transgender. He talked about the employment, housing, and healthcare discrimination of transgender people who are trying to obtain such services. This discrimination is illegal, but something that is still occurring on a daily basis. Wilkinson went on to say that some trans people are denied coverage for medical complications, even when they are not related to transition health care claims. This is outrageous because these people are being denied of basic human rights and services that should be provided under any circumstance to any individual. For a transgender individual, their gender orientation almost becomes crippling to their survival as it affects multiple dimensions of their life.

He had talked about the police harassment that transgender individuals face. He mentioned a trans woman named Monica Jones, who was taken into custody after being assumed to be a prostitute. This treatment is disgraceful as transgender people are left nearly defenseless under the abuse of power. It is an injustice that not many do not seem to stand up for or fight to be solved. In addition to police enforcement, housing in prisons is also a concerning issue. Many prisons house inmates based on their sex at birth, which can be degrading, cruel punishment, and violent if a transgender person is not placed within their identity.

Much of this discrimination causes trauma among transgender populations. Suicide is a huge problem among the transgender community. Willy Wilkinson shared that 41% of transgender people have attempted suicide, which is nine times more likely than the general population. There is great suffering that comes with the disapproval of being someone you truly want to be. Depriving someone of the acceptance to be the person they are at heart can cause shame, self-hate, and depression. It is heartbreaking to think that trans people feel that life is so unbearable because us as a society have created a hateful environment and dehumanize others who don’t fit with our perception of “normal”.

Wilkinson discussed the “cis” gender label. Which is given to the category that we describe as “normal” or the majority of the population. Using this label is proper and does not give privilege to those who fit with the majority’s standards or traits. If we compared gay people to someone who is strait and described the one person “gay” and the other “normal”, this is flawed. It is important to not identify the traits of the majority as being superior to aspects of people that are less prevalent.

I learned a lot about the injustice and discrimination of transgender people from Willy Wilkinson’s lecture that I had not been aware of before. He was a very engaging, intelligent speaker. I had not personally heard stories directly from a trans individual before. Transgender people are such a small portion of the U.S. population, but it does not make them any less deserving of protection in every form. I am blessed that it is fairly easy to be who I am in this world, but am so uncomfortable that this same world makes life so intolerable for many others who do not fit a certain mold. While we are making progression as a society, it still is not a safe place for people who are transgender and that is absolutely unacceptable. Everyone has a place and deserves the equal opportunity of pursuing the life that they want to as who they are, comfortably.