Universities must be spaces of learning, not intolerance. It’s time to take action to protect and support the trans community.
For the past decade, Americans have been fed a steady diet of transphobic hysteria, with 2024 being the fifth consecutive record-breaking year for anti-trans legislation. The election of Donald J. Trump was predicated on a fight against trans rights. His wealthiest donor is well-known for his transphobia.
As professors at San José State University, we have seen the results of this type of targeted campaign. Recent and past events on our campus by transphobic individuals and extremist groups emphasizing bigotry and hate, turn university spaces into anti-intellectual theater and harm trans students. In so doing, they position our campuses too closely to intolerance.
The role of the university is not intolerance. Rather, by design, universities are meant to be open and visionary spaces where tolerance of ideas flourishes. Universities shift paradigms because they prioritize knowledge and creativity. University campuses are no place for “othering” categories of people and must be places that support trans liberation.
The role of the university is not intolerance. Rather, by design, universities are meant to be open and visionary spaces where tolerance of ideas flourishes.
Environment matters. Increases in state-level anti-transgender legislation are directly correlated with an increase in suicide attempts among nonbinary and transgender young people, according to a Trevor Project peer-reviewed study. In this current hostile environment, trans students, colleagues, family and friends in our lives are worried about staying alive because of the threat of violence from others. We need to ensure that our university practices welcome, include and protect our trans community, regardless of whether they are out. Many are not.
University policies must support all trans students. Universities exist as a protected space for reflection and learning where all students belong. Every student deserves the baseline conditions necessary to learn and be successful.
- Universities can issue clear statements that affirm trans lives.
- Educators can ensure that students are addressed with their correct names and pronouns.
- Institutions must have a barrier-free process that allows students to change their email addresses and profiles accordingly.
- Buildings need gender-neutral bathrooms.
- Students should have a clear path to faculty allies.
- Members of the university community must be held accountable for respecting trans members and that includes a willingness to learn from their mistakes.
- Transphobic rhetoric should not be allowed on campus. When universities allow speakers that advocate the eradication of transgenderism in the name of free speech, it creates a space rife with hostility toward those simply living their lives.
How can trans students, staff and faculty focus on the work of teaching and learning within a context of such malevolence?
It’s an unreasonable expectation. And, the trajectory ahead looks dim. It is likely that the incoming administration will continue to preserve their reign through heteronormative, queerphobic and transphobic agendas. However, liberation demands that we seek it for all. We claim to be a nation of freedom, however, if our love of freedom only applies to some, and we do not believe in freedom for everyone, what we actually love and protect is our privilege.
We claim to be a nation of freedom, however, if our love of freedom only applies to some, and we do not believe in freedom for everyone, what we actually love and protect is our privilege.
To be sure, some people will argue that trans people’s very existence is a threat. However, the American Civil Liberties Union reminds us that extending legal protections to trans people does not threaten the rights of anyone. Rather, trans-safe campuses benefit everybody by expanding restrictive notions of gender, challenging us to think about our own worth and possibilities as human beings.
As women’s rights foremothers Sarah Moore Grimke (1837) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg remind (1973): “I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” Taking actions to affirm the human rights of all to simply live freely, without oppression, is the long work of social justice. The work of trans liberation is fundamental to a free society. The university must not cater to extremism in any form; when it does it sacrifices the very essence of its value.
