Transcriptions

When I tell someone I write a column for The Harvard Crimson, they always ask the same thing: “What’s it about?”

I’m always expecting this — it’s the natural, inevitable follow-up question. And still, I hesitate, my mouth drying up, the answer caught somewhere in my throat.

It shouldn’t be so difficult to say “I write about transgender issues at Harvard.” But as simple as they sound, these seven words make a whole world of difference.

Harvard has not stopped talking about free speech — more specifically, our ostensible lack of it.

Who is to blame for our campus’s failing speech culture? Some fault institutional DEI initiatives and the advocates who champion them.

According to critics, by drawing sharp distinctions between the oppressed and the oppressor and policing who is entitled to speak on matters of identity, DEI allows identity politics to impede discourse.

What if I told you that being transgender is a choice?

If you already feel apprehensive, I don’t blame you. Conservative actors have long leveraged similar rhetoric to delegitimize and attack the trans community. They are wrong to suggest that being trans is made-up.

But the fact remains: I chose to be trans. And every day I wake up and I choose it again.

The anticipated creation of a new working group to consider adopting a policy of institutional neutrality has prompted extensive debate about neutrality’s merits and pitfalls.

There is a pressing question, however, that has received far less attention than it deserves: If adopted, what would institutional neutrality mean for students whose identities are highly politicized? For students like me?

I am transgender. In recent years, anti-trans propaganda and legislation have skyrocketed, trapping my community at the center of public discourse. The right has made its anti-trans crusade a central part of its political agenda — a ploy to rile up voters and generate support. Consequently, championing the basic rights of trans people has been cast as a position of the left.

“There are only two sexes.”

At a moment when transgender people face unprecedented visibility and vulnerability, this claim pervades the discourse surrounding our identities. We hear it everywhere: in the media, in our legislatures, and, yes, at our very own university.

Even when it is not being used to categorically deny the existence of trans people, this claim is weaponized to qualify our validity. The argument goes as follows: “Trans people can ask to be called whatever they want, but they can’t change the fact that there are only two sexes.”

Only 46 percent of trans students agree with the statement “I feel like I belong at Harvard,” according to a 2019 University-wide survey, the lowest of every demographic subgroup surveyed.

These statistics are sobering, but not surprising — at least not to trans students like myself.

This first became clear to me during Visitas last spring. Like my fellow admits, I arrived on campus bright-eyed and eager to learn about the opportunities that awaited me. But beyond typical curiosity about coursework and extracurriculars, I was also brimming with questions about what it would mean for me to be trans on campus.

For a community that represents such a small percentage of the population – less than one percent – trans people have occupied a strikingly large portion of public and political discourse.

2023 was a record-breaking year for anti-transgender legislation. Five hundred ninety-one anti-trans bills were introduced in state legislatures across the U.S. with 86 passed into law, roughly a three-fold increase from 2022. These bills target every facet of transgender rights, from access to gender-affirming healthcare and public bathrooms to inclusion in athletics and school curricula.

As a transgender person, it has been exhausting to watch my community’s basic rights put into jeopardy and framed as subjects for debate: Should trans people be allowed in public bathrooms? Should we be allowed to play sports? Should we be included in school curricula? Should we have access to healthcare? We are treated like a question to be answered, a problem to be solved.