Cal Poly’s QTPoCC shares "Response to Recent News on Transgender and Intersex Erasure"
Many of you have already come across the alarming news of 45’s decision, released by the Department of Health and Human Services, to define gender in terms of immutable, binary (male/female) at-birth assignments. We at the Queer and/or Trans* People of Color Club firmly oppose this and all forms of legalized, state sanctioned violence against Transgender and Intersex people. Our definition of Trans* is broad, expansive, and inclusive of gender configurations beyond cisgender normativity.
We recognize this move not as an irresponsible act on the part of a few policy makers, but instead a measure that can be traced back to the instantiation of colonialism. Among the mechanisms of continued colonial conquest that persist with us, as we observe with this legal move, are the imperatives to erase Trans*, Non-binary, Intersex, Two-Spirit, and other gender identifications outside the colonial model from existence. However, “Trans has always resisted state erasure—which begins with the slave ship, the plantation, the settler colony and extends to the prison and more. We have always found new ways of forging life, the state can’t erase what it can’t even dream, can’t capture what it can’t fathom” [1]. The words of Che Gossett remind us of our ancestors’ vigilance and strength. This moment may feel incredibly heavy, but we are together in this, alongside and with our Queer and/or Transgender ancestors, resisting and surviving the colonial aim to eradicate us. They are with us. We are with you. We love you.
As long as there are people, gender will never be an uncomplicated duality. Deborah Miranda writes, “A Two-Spirit person is born regardless of biological genealogy. Thus we will always be with you. We are you. We are not outsiders, some other community that can be wiped out. We come from you, and we return to you” [2]. Similarly, Transgender and Intersex people will reemerge of the ashes. Our bodies perpetually re-member the past and produce Queer, Trans*, Two-Spirit [3], and Intersex futures. We can never be eradicated.
From the past, we can best glean the ways these tactics will largely harm Indigenous and Black populations, especially Black/Native Transgender inmates. Experientially, Trans* and Queer of Color communities know this to be true. Prisons are the site of anti-Transgender brutalization, and as Trans* and Queer students of Color, we are committed to ending the violences of captivity and anti-Trans* pathologization. We must always remind ourselves that we are connected intimately to one another. The violences our neighbors face are, too, our responsibility. Together, let’s continue to demand the return of Indigenous lands and lifeways, to envision and realize a world without prisons, create a world of where we may be our authentic selves, and bring ends to the ongoing violence of colonialism. Our communities will resurge,again and again. Let’s continue to imagine and carve pasts, presents, and futures together, that are Trans*, that are Queer, Non-binary, accessible, Intersex, Femme, Indigenous, Black, expansive, and radically inclusive.
With immeasurable love,
Queer and/or Trans* People of Color Club
[1] Gossett, Che. Twitter Post. October 22, 2018.
[2] Miranda, D. A. "Extermination of the Joyas: Gendercide in Spanish California." GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 16, no. 1-2 (2010): 253-84. doi:10.1215/10642684-2009-022.
[3] Two-Spirit is not an identity that can be extended to anyone but Natives who have a particular spiritual role in their community. In that vein, not all Queer or Trans* Natives are Two-Spirit.