Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Getting Your Education While Trans Is A Revolutionary Act

It's May, and in addition to it being prom season, we also have people walking across stages across the country to receive their diplomas.

The topic is on my mind because I'm about to deliver a keynote speech on the UT-Austin campus in a few hours for their lavender graduation ceremony, and witnessed a trans feminine friend of mine get her degree from Prairie View Saturday.

I love being on a college campus whether it is a ginormous one like the UT-Austin one is or as small as the HCC-Southeast one that I've had the honor to do numerous events and panel discussions.

The common thread with both is those campuses are in the important business of educating our next generation of citizens and future leaders

And some of the citizens being educated on our college campuses in Texas and around the country are transgender ones who either transitioned in their teens or on those campuses.

Trans people go through hell and if they manage to get their high school and collegiate diplomas, they have beaten the odds that see 71% of them drop out before finishing high school.

If they managed to beat those odds and graduate, then its getting through college while trans, which can be a feat in itself in addition to just dealing with collegiate classwork.

And a trans person getting their education while trans is a revolutionary act.

1 comment:

Transient said...

that's pretty offensive to non-trans people. Education is revolutionary regardless of what you identify as...it's also offensive purporting education is what happens at college. College campuses are like concentration camps, where free-thinking goes for extermination...you don't need a school to learn or get a diploma. Diplomas mean less and less every passing month anyway. All this empty claptrap about future leaders and citizenry sounds like a COMINTERN propaganda meeting, celebrating the Fatherland it's making my stomach turn