BUZZ
ANALYSIS: Because, student says, ‘across the board’ transgender individuals ‘have a harder time with everything’
Two years after the Stanford University transgender student discussion group “Trans&” was cancelled, some students and alumni remain feeling “confused and abandoned.”
According to The Stanford Daily, the university’s Queer Student Resources cancelled Trans& — the weekly meetings of which usually “consisted of a catered meal and guided discussion about trans issues” — due to low attendance and budget concerns.
In a statement, QSR said it remained a place “where all students, including students of all genders and sexualities, can flourish,” and that it’s making programming “more intersectional and intentionally welcoming of the widest range of identities, communities, and perspectives within shared spaces.”
Former Trans& participant and staff member “Alex,” who uses plural pronouns, contested the claim of low attendance, saying “they” “saw a lot of people come” who were engaged in “great conversations.”
Alex said the group was necessary because trans individuals “across the board, have a harder time with everything.”
Alex claimed trans individuals are “more disabled,” “more unemployed,” “less educated,” and “have a lot more health issues than cis people on average.” “They” asked “Are our lives not hard enough that we can have this one moment of solace and just come together?”
Alex further expressed concern that a cisgender staff member had replaced “them” in the group after “they” went on an academic leave.
Grad student Ev Nichols, who according to her/their website writes the “Queer Science Lab” newsletter and works “to bring the ‘hidden curriculum’ of how to succeed” into her/their teaching, said before Trans& she/they “felt isolated and lacked access to queer or trans community.”
Going to Trans& meetings made Nichols (pictured) not “feel super hyper-vigilant about how [she’s/they’re] being perceived by other people” on campus, she/they added.
(In 2024, Nichols took issue with a critique of transgender athletes by a pair of Brazilian researchers, saying it was “critical to have discussions in ways that respect the experiences of” trans people. She/they added “Over-simplifying biology with intellectually empty rhetoric only serves to inflame emotions and stoke harassment of anyone perceived as outside of the sexed norms of white supremacy” — aka transgender people and “cisgender women of colour.”)
Student Ava Aidala, a regular Trans& participant, said gatherings like the group’s are needed in order to “thrive as a queer person.”
“I sort of fear for the trans students that are going to be in a campus where it is going to be even more isolating than it was for me,” Aidala said. She alleged a “campaign against queer spaces on campus” such as the “deprioritization” of co-op houses.
Interestingly, a year ago the Enchanted Broccoli Forrest co-op (a “loosely arts-themed co-op dedicated to empowering BIPOC, gender-marginalized, queer, and [first-generation/limited-income] voices,” since renamed “1115 Campus Drive”), which had been listed on the Queer Student Resources website, was suspended for anti-white Title VI violations.
In 2023, Aidala wrote an op-ed for the Daily demanding conservative pundit Matt Walsh not be permitted to speak on campus: “This is not a question of freedom of speech, but one of the lives of our queer and trans students.”
Aidala claimed Walsh is the “leading propagandist” for the “looming erasure” of trans people.
Also in 2023, then-QSR staff member Adi Mukund advocated handing out hormones “like Skittles” in a Daily letter to the editor, and said “she” was tired of debating the right of trans folks “to exist.”
MORE: Campus ‘Queer Resource Center’ scrubs blacks-only mixer after College Fix queries
