Transgender Awareness Week

From the week of November 13-19, 2023, Emily Carr celebrated Transgender Awareness Week. Our GSA club put together an awareness table filled with pride products, maintained by supportive club members, and exhibited an environment for learning purposes. They put together an anonymous question deposit box, and 4 poll questions. The poll questions consisted of the following:

Do you know the difference between transgender and cisgender?: Yes-17 Maybe-0 No-15
Are you up-to-date on transgender news and current events?: Yes- 6 Maybe-1 No-22
Do you know how to support a transgender/gender-queer person?: Yes-12 Maybe-4 No-12
Do you know any transgender/gender-queer people?: Yes-23 Maybe-0 No-9

Data Response:
According to the collected data, we can see that more people know a transgender person than know the difference between transgender and cisgender. Knowing a trans-person but not knowing the difference between one’s own identity compared to a trans-identity shows a slight gap of knowledge in their lives that could benefit said people.

Moreover, the data identifies how more people know how to support a trans-person, yet are not updated on transgender current events. Understanding what is going on in the world of transgender news can be a crucial aspect of supporting a transgender or queer person; this may be something to look deeper into for those who are unaware of these current events.

On the contrary, several people admitted to the choice of “maybe” for certain poll questions. These kinds of answers show doubtfulness in one’s ability to support trans-people, and/or be up-to-date on transgender current events. In these situations, it is important to continue to try and research answers and information to help gain more knowledge pertaining to these questions.

Answers To The Poll Questions:
Cisgender is the title for someone who identifies as the gender they were born as. For example, someone is born female and they identify as a girl. Transgender is the title for someone who identifies as another gender, different from the one they were biologically born as. For example, someone is born male, however they identify as a girl. The act of trying to find one’s own gender is difficult; for most of us, it comes with no thought, however we should be aware that not everyone has that luxury.

Currently, transgender news in Canada for the most part has not been positive. Some provinces in Canada are banning the use of preferred pronouns in school, as well as the usage of 2SLGBTQ+ books in schools. As a result, a large number of people are unhappy with the alterations, and the queer community is afraid that this will lead to an eradication of support from the government and big corporations.

Some ways to support transgender and queer people are: to ask for their preferred name and pronouns in private, to build a trusting relationship, to be mindful that an individual may be struggling daily with things you may not, to disregard inappropriate questions (i.e. What’s your real name?), and to be careful of not sharing their personal information relating to their sex assigned at birth without consent. Nevertheless, if a loved one comes out to you as transgender, the most important thing to do is to accept them without criticizing them.

Many people in our school community have not met trans/gender-queer people, and that is OK. Hence, being involved in the ECSS GSA Club is a great way to learn about and meet new people.

Specific Anonymous Questions:
What does it mean to identify as transgender?
As aforementioned, being transgender refers to an identity as the opposite sex. Being transgender means to expose an intimate detail of one’s life to people they may not know. This can be scary, and they need support from the people around them in order to prosper.

What does it mean to identify as gender-queer?
Breaking down this word, gender refers to your identity. Your gender represents how you view yourself, whether that be masculine, feminine, or neutral. The word queer is an umbrella term. Queer is any area in-between the 2SLGBT acronym. When placing these definitions together, the word gender-queer forms and it is a term that describes gender identities in-between the binary (male/female). Examples of this includes: non-binary, meaning a gender outside of male and female, or agender, referring to no gender. Rather than using only the term transgender, gender-queer is an inclusive term when referring to people who do not identify as their birth sex.

Conclusion:
From the GSA’s transgender awareness table, it gave valuable information to our schools viewpoint on transgender and gender-queer basics. Transgender Awareness week reminds us of struggles transgender people face on a daily basis and how as a school, we will support our fellow students thoroughly and with great effort.