The GLBT Center will be hosting Transgender Awareness Week from November 16-20, 2015. This program will include a series of events that increase understanding about transgender identities and issues, shed light on the need for transgender-specific services and start a dialog about the role of our cultural values in perpetuating anti-transgender attitudes. Throughout the week, the GLBT Center will display a memorial to the transgender lives that have been lost to murder or suicide in the past year. Please consider visiting as we honor the lives cut short.
Transgender Awareness Week kicks off in Wolf Plaza on Monday, November 16, 2015 with a fundraiser for the Trans Lifeline, a non-profit 24-hour crisis hotline run by and for transgender people. The Trans Lifeline is the first of its kind to provide culturally competent crisis support services for those who are transgender, genderqueer, gender non-conforming or gender questioning. The GLBT CommUNITY Alliance and T-Files, the GLBT Center’s transgender peer support group, will be conducting a prize drawing from 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. with the proceeds going towards the Trans Lifeline. More information about Trans Lifeline can be found at www.translifeline.org. The student groups will also be challenging the Wolfpack to read The GENDER Book throughout the week and engage in conversations around transgender identities and issues. The GENDER Book is available through the NC State Libraries or at www.thegenderbook.com. The GENDER Book is a beautifully illustrated and highly informative work that gently introduces the reader to the nuances of transgender identities and issues. The GLBT CommUNITY Alliance and T-Files encourage students, faculty and staff to browse the website and consider reading a few pages a day throughout Transgender Awareness Week.
On Wednesday, November 18, 2015 from 6:30-8:00 p.m. in Talley 4101, the GLBT Center will be hosting an in-depth workshop about how cultural values impact the transgender community. How does the cultural environment in which we all participate perpetuate bias against the transgender community? How does this pervasive bias, conscious or unconscious, impact the lives of transgender, genderqueer, gender non-conforming and gender-questioning people? This workshop will create a space for dialogue where participants can explore the role of cultural values and their own role in creating or reenvisioning those values.
Transgender Awareness Week culminates on November 20, 2015 with Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR), an annual observance for transgender individuals who were murdered over the past year. This closing event will take place in Wolf Plaza on Friday from 6:00-7:30 p.m. Speakers will describe the significance of Transgender Day of Remembrance and honor each life lost to murder or suicide. Following the Reading of the Names and memorial performance there will be a Call to Action with the opportunity to reflect and paint the Free Expression Tunnel.
Following TDoR on Monday, November 23, 2015 the GLBT Center and Multicultural Student Affairs will be screening the film Two Spirits (2009) starting at 6:00 p.m. in SAS 1216. The film discusses gender identity and sexuality in Native communities with particular focus on the life of Fred Martinez, who was killed due to his Two Spirit identity and expression in 2001. A talking circle and discussion will follow.
- Download the poster!
Andy DeRoin is the program coordinator in the GLBT Center.