Trans Week fights transphobia

"People always say that being gay and dressing up in drag is, like, unnatural, but the trees don't give a shit! It might be anti-social, but it's not unnatural."

That's Dave End talking. End is one of the performers in the music group Gender Fabulous, which performed at the Kimmel Center Monday night. The show celebrated the beginning of Trans Awareness Week, a week of events hosted by NYU's Office of LGBT Student Services. Trans Week is meant to raise awareness and promote discussion about topics and issues for transgendered people and non-gender conformists.

Trans Week was started in 2005 when NYU changed its non-discrimination policy to say people could no longer be discriminated against based on their gender identity or expression. Since then, the week has focused on the challenges that members of the transgender community face.

"There seems to be a lack of trans visibility in day-to-day life at NYU," Gallatin senior Mel King, the chief organizer of Trans Awareness Week, said. "The 'T' is often left out of the discussion in LGBT discussions."

King said one of the goals this week is to focus more on the transgender community and combat the transphobia he says exists even in the LGBT community.

Judith Stacey, an NYU professor of social and cultural analysis in the gender and sexuality studies program, thinks those who identify as transgendered face many challenges, but that efforts such as Trans Week could help make a difference.

"It can still be difficult, and there still is an enormous amount of violence," Stacey said. "On the other hand, the mobilization against that has changed public attitudes a great deal."

Gallatin junior Anna Mullen, who helped organize Trans Awareness Week, said this year's week is different from past ones because some events will focus more on how larger issues — including race and class — have affected the transgender experience. These events include discussions such as "Transactions: Classism & Trans Communities," and one on Friday called "Transected: Intersections of Race and Transpeople."

Both Mullen and King stressed that not all events are serious discussions. The "Porn Screening and Do-It-Yourself Packing Party" event this Thursday and the Gender Fabulous show Monday night were intended to be social events for people who are not necessarily experts on the transgendered community.

Jon Wetter, who graduated from Steinhardt in 2008, went to the performance Monday night to see the musician *BOB*.

"I love *BOB*," he said. "The woman is performing this exaggerated theory of her own gender. It's more than just the music, it's the whole show."

Samantha Cook is a staff writer.