Content Warning: medical mistreatment

Positionally Statement: This post is written by Ojuswani Phogat, a second-year student at UMBC and a student-staff member at the Women’s Center. In writing this blog, I hope to shed light on one of the many ways in which individuals who experience menstruation are disenfranchised by the medical community, who so often fail to effectively diagnose menstrual irregularities in favor of prescribing the “birth control band aid” because they fail to believe and understand their patients’ issues. The following blog speculates as to how and why birth control is seen as the holy grail of menstruation issues when it, in fact, does not treat the problems at hand. I do not claim to be an expert on the uses or effects of birth control, nor am I situated in any position within the medical field myself, meaning my qualifications for discussing such issues are only through the lens of a patient. I aim not to blame providers but rather to expose the inefficiencies present in obtaining medical care for gynecological issues. This piece in no way aims to negate the necessity of birth control and its role as a contraceptive, as it should be accessible to all I with stand all those who are fighting for access to healthcare and autonomy over their bodies. Note: this piece uses the terms: The Pill, birth control, hormonal birth control, and contraception interchangeably to refer to the hormonal birth control pill. 

ID: Someone looking at a calendar filled in with three weeks of blue squares and one week of yellow squares. The calendar rests against a blue background.

I was 12 years old the first time I experienced irregularities in my menstrual cycle. I had gone through a six-week period of continuous heavy bleeding with no indication of nearing an end. I knew as much about menstruation as a child who had experienced their first period could, and as such I was more embarrassed than concerned by my condition. It wasn’t until the bags under my eyes looked like craters, and the brown of my skin gave way to a ghostly gray that I took steps to get help.

The medical care that ensued consisted of blood work, ultrasounds, and multiple gynecological visits before I was given some “remedy” to my apparently undiagnosable problem. A remedy that promised not only to “regularize” my cycle but also one that allowed the doctors to put the diagnosing efforts on the back burner as they congratulated themselves for a job well done. When these same symptoms resurfaced in my junior year of high school (approximately five years later), I was again given this same magical quick fix: a surface-level solution that hid rather than resolved my issue. That solution being none other than hormonal birth control. 

ID: The image displays the chemistry behind oral contraceptives, particularly the different hormones present in the body and how they are impacted by the use of contraceptives. The top left discusses the natural hormones 

If you aren’t yet aware of the absolute agony that hormonal birth control can be for some, allow me to open your eyes. Here are just some side effects of The Pill: nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps, bloating, fluctuations in appetite and weight, depression, blood clots, and strokes. I call on these primarily to situate your understanding of the immense impact that these tiny 15mm pills can have on the body and the mind.       

I know my story is not dissimilar to others in my life—both friends and colleagues—who resonated with an experience where insufficient health solutions facilitated the loss of well-being and health. The unfortunate reality is that a lack of effective medical care is pervasive, particularly when discussing menstrual issues. The long road to diagnosis and helpful treatment is one that I recognize many people are forced to take, the consequences of which have altered their ability to live a life they deem to be acceptable. 

It is important to note that this phenomenon is not new. Persons with menstrual ailments, whether or not they are related to chronic illness, have always been met with resistance when attempting to access proper health care in which their symptoms are clearly addressed. Such poor treatment by medical providers is an everyday struggle in the world of disability and chronic illness, in which people and their pain are ignored. 

The world of menstruation is complex. It is a bodily phenomenon that is all-consuming and one that leaves no area of the body or mind untouched. When one experiences this phenomenon abnormally, as  many do, their needs are habitually diminished and care foregone in place of a single band-aid solution: hormonal birth control. Whether it be polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, menorrhagia, etc. (all very different conditions), or even when lacking a clear diagnosis, the answer always seems to be The Pill. 

The Pill as a Cycle Regulator

I often ask myself: why it is that the medical community could even fathom such an intricate and enigmatic cycle (that differs from person to person) to be regulated by what is essentially a single remedy, especially when the remedy in question can have so many negative side effects?

In researching this further, I find the blame to lie in part with the medical community but more so on marketing and political agencies that have come to control the narratives of The Pill as medication and its uses. I speculate that this standard of care for menstrual issues has to do primarily with cultural stigmas surrounding menstruation and contraception and the way they have been handled in the legal-political sphere. 

The historical rhetoric surrounding both contraceptives and menstruation seems to be resoundingly negative and rooted in pervasive cultural stigmas that deem those seeking sexual health care to be shameful and promiscuous. The irrational fear is that increased access to contraceptives allows individuals to be sexually irresponsible which promotes vice. Even Gregory Pincus (the scientist responsible for the research and development of birth control) concerned himself with it as a scientific quest and not one rooted in sexual freedom for women (which he too strongly opposed). 

The origin of birth control was always marked by the stigmatization of any attempts to control conception, so much so that the form of The Pill on the market at the time was marked as an “obscene and illicit” material by law and therefore prohibited to be used for the purpose of preventing pregnancy. In the United States, the Comstock law of 1873 expressly forbade the distribution, discussion, research, or advertisement of contraceptives which encompassed a stronger version of today’s birth control pills. 

You might be asking, “Well, with all this red tape, how on earth did they come to create and distribute The Pill?” In answer,  birth control was marketed primarily as a mechanism for menstrual cycle control, as opposed to as a contraceptive, and could only be prescribed as such, mainly to married women. A similar phenomenon occurred in Canada with the 1892 Criminal Code which criminalized the sale or distribution of birth control since it was considered “illicit” material. As laws were adapted, birth control became available for use solely as a cycle regulator in 1960 and that practice accelerated its popularity as a prescription drug in the medical world.  

The standard of care that remains in the modern-day continues to “regulate” menstrual cycles by administering birth control.

Since its arrival on the market, The Pill has been used for the process of cycle regulation, when it was developed and intended to be a temporary mechanism for controlling whether one conceived or not. Even today, it remains unlike other modern medicine as it is “prescribed routinely and by default”. 

I can only speak as an individual on the patient end of the health care process who is dissatisfied with the medical care I have received thus far. It is disheartening to experience the sheer lack of options held by persons with menstrual issues when it comes to claiming agency over their health and to be poked and prodded for years only to remain in a state of unknowingness.  

The incorrect notion perpetuated by ineffective gynecological health care remains: menstruating individuals’ health matters less and will be treated as such. Because of this sentiment, the burden of care falls on individuals. It is critical to take note of the patterns and behaviors of your body. In doing so you may know how to better recognize and approach signs that may indicate menstrual disorders.

https://www.contemporarypediatrics.com/view/menses-vital-sign-teenaged-girls

ID: The image is an infographic titled “Key Issues to keep in mind when assessing menses”. The bullets are as follows: remember to use menstrual cycle as a vital sign; even in the first year of menarche most girls have a period every 90 days; irregular periods even those resulting in anemia may be a sign of polycystic ovary syndrome; remember to screen for chlamydia in patients with heavy or irregular menstrual bleeding, teenagers with heavy bleeding should be screened for a bleeding disorder with at least a complete blood count (CBC), ferritin and thyroid-stimulating hormone level; the most common bleeding disorders associated with heavy menstrual bleeding include platelet function disorders and Willebrand disease; only draw von Willebrand testing during the first 3 days of a menstrual cycle when estrogen levels are at the nadir) 

If you are facing menstruation-related issues, I urge you to stand your ground in the exam room. While it is likely that your journey to diagnosis and productive help may not be easy, it is critical to actively protect your physical and mental self. You deserve appropriate care that works to treat rather than hide your ailments. Knowing the ways in which you may advocate for yourself in medical practices is key. 

In looking for further resources and information on this matter be sure to check out the links below: 

Menstruation and Menstrual Problems | NICHD – Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development 

Medline Plus Estrogen and Progestin (Oral Contraceptives) 

PBS The Side Effects of the Pill 

NIH Half a century of the oral contraceptive pill 

NIH How the Pill Became a Lifestyle Drug: The Pharmaceutical Industry and Birth Control in the United States Since 1960 

Figuring the Population Explosion: Demography in the Mid-Twentieth Century 

Positionality Statement: This post is written by Marybeth Mareski, a Returning Women’s Scholar and social work intern at the Women’s Center in her final year at UMBC. I am a gender nonconforming lesbian in the queer and trans community, and I am in social work school with the professional goal of providing therapy to primarily queer and trans clients. I write this post as a summary of the recent anti-trans legislation, to draw attention to some of the underlying motivations, and to offer suggestions on how to support the queer and trans community.

Almost as if they had no intentions or ideas about how to solve any of America’s actual problems, lawmakers have made this the worst year in American history so far for anti-trans legislation, with more than three anti LGBTQ laws being filed each day in 2022. 

These bills tend to fall into three main categories:

1. The first is school policies, such as Florida’s controversial so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, recently signed into law by Ron DeSantis, which forbids teachers from discussing the topic of LGBTQ people with students before fourth grade, even though 1% of 9-year olds already self-identify as gay or trans. 
2. The second is youth healthcare bans, the most of extreme of which attempted to criminalize helping a child cross state lines to seek care (in Idaho, though passed by their State House mercifully killed by their State Senate). 
3. The third is youth sports bans, like the recent Utah bill banning trans students from playing on women’s school teams, which the governor vetoed but the state legislature overturned to force into law. Reader, there is one transgender girl playing on a women’s K-12 team in all of Utah. All of this legislative effort spent to prevent one girl from playing sports. Perhaps this is about something else, then?

When society is suddenly up in arms about something that presents very little if any actual harm, it is time to wonder if we have a moral panic on our hands.

Moral Panics

Moral panics are a phenomenon where a behavior or group of individuals is targeted for public concern that is far in excess of the actual danger presented. Moral panics are beneficial to the state, because they amplify the powers of the law, and beneficial to the news media, because coverage of these moral panics drive viewership and advertising revenue. For instance, as the the US legislative apparatus spends its time keeping trans kids out of the sports of their choice in late March and early April, Fox news aired 170 segments discussing trans people over those three weeks, including Tucker Carlson’s lie that kids are trans because of adult predators. What is the outcome of programming like this? Increased viewership and ad revenue to Fox News, and increased public attacks against LGBTQ people: a recent example includes a family with two dads who endured a man screaming at them on a train that they were pedophiles who had had stolen their own children.

Republicans hammer on moral panics like trans issues and Critical Race Theory to mobilize their base. This sort of outrage is very effective at bringing voters to the polls, but it leads to uncertain outcomes: 67% of national voters oppose legislation that prohibits trans athletes from playing on their team of choice. Fascinatingly, it is not because most Republicans support trans athletes – it seems to be because voters find the involvement of the law itself in this issue to be distasteful.

At the risk of giving too much credit to the American voter, is it not also clear that spending effort on legislating this issue is a huge waste of time? Nearly one million Americans are dead from Covid. Inflation is the highest it’s been in forty years. Housing costs have gone up more than 25% since March 2020. How is keeping trans kids out of sports improving the lives of Americans?

Transness is Not New

The notion that children who believe themselves to be trans are being ‘groomed’ by LGBTQ adults is an age-old fearmongering tactic. It stems from the right-wing ideology that being LGBTQ is unnatural, and therefore queer kids must have been indoctrinated into being queer, which is absurd on its face: one of the biggest mental health threats that LGBTQ people face is rejection from their own families. It is not seeing representations of the sinful urban lifestyle that converts innocent children into being queer – young people discover their own LGBTQ tendencies, do not feel safe in their own communities, and move to the diverse urban centers where they are free to be fully themselves.

What about concerns that such an increasing number of young people are transitioning that it must be a trend? 

Obstacles to transgender care have been immense. The psychiatric community has controlled access to gender-affirming services, and the terms of that access has been giving the answers that caregivers demanded to hear. Once barriers are lowered and the stigma is decreased, the natural incidence can be allowed to emerge. Take the history of left-handedness, for instance. In the early 20th century, left-handedness was seen as unnatural and punished, and rates of left-handedness were artificially suppressed. Once that stigma faded, rates rose more than ten percent in the population to their natural level, and remained there. Has being trans been vanishingly rare, or has being able to be trans been vanishingly rare?

Being trans is not new. People with a gender expression beyond biological male and female have always existed:

“… cultures worldwide have often recognized genders other than “male” and “female.” India’s hijra, which has existed for millennia, has an essential place in Hinduism and a socio-cultural role as performers. Judaism recognizes no fewer than six distinct sex¹ categories in its classical texts and tradition. In Oaxaca, Mexico, the third gender muxe dates back to the pre-Columbian era. The South Sulawesi Bugis people recognize five genders which have been crucial to their society for at least 600 years. – The Gender Binary Is a Tool of White Supremacy

And just as people throughout millenia have expressed their identity beyond the gender binary, researcher Jules Gill-Peterson found evidence that young people have been socially transitioning throughout the twentieth century, and attempting to transition medically for as long as medical transition as existed:

“I found handwritten letters from trans kids to a famous endocrinologist, Harry Benjamin, who was known for providing trans healthcare. In the 60s and 70s, they would say, “I’m X years old. I’m a transsexual. I read about that in the news” or “I looked up your work at a library, and it describes who I am”. They were from all over the country and they would ask if Dr Benjamin could see them, send them hormones, give them a permit to wear the clothes they wanted, talk to their family or teacher. It was young kids knowing really clearly that they were trans and going toe-to-toe with medical professionals. Suddenly, I had not only proof that kids were trans, but that they contacted doctors and tried to transition the best they could. It speaks to the remarkable ingenuity and resilience that trans young people have had for a really long time. And it’s pretty unimpeachable evidence that this is not a new social phenomenon. It’s not some trendy thing that kids are picking up now.” – ‘Trans kids are not new’: a historian on the long record of youth transitioning in America

What Can You Do?

ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio and writer and activist Raquel Willis used the occasion of the Trans Day of Visibility to devote an entire week to activism against these bills. They created a website called Trans Week of Visibility and Action which outlines many of the bills in question, some of which are still in session, with links to scripts to write to lawmakers, as well as links to local, trans-led grassroots organizations that are helping trans kids in each state. In Maryland, Trans Maryland is a “multi-racial, multi-gender, trans-led community power building organization dedicated to Maryland’s trans community” which works to pass trans-affirming bills in Annapolis and promote trans-inclusive health care in Maryland, as well as offering legal and financial support for name changes for trans people and a weekly digital support group – follow them online for action alerts for Maryland-based trans-related legislation, or donate to help support their cause.

Baltimore Safe Haven is a trans-led organization that provides services to the trans community members in survival mode. They offer a drop-in center, transitional housing, youth housing, meal services, and more. They are seeking volunteers, donations, and wish list purchases.

Trans people have always been on the forefront of LGBTQ+ rights, because society is so hostile to trans people that they so often have to fight to simply survive. We can call this bravery or resilience, and it is, but it is also the result of trans people being forced to constantly advocate for themselves, with little help from other, less marginalized groups. If you are cis, what about helping the trans people in your life, or clearly identifying yourself as an ally to them? 

Modeling trans-inclusive behavior increases the safety, comfort, and well-being of trans people around you. The National Center of Transgender Equality has a list of actions you can take that include challenging anti-transgender remarks, supporting trans people who experience discrimination, ensuring non-gendered bathrooms in your spaces, crafting anti-discrimination policies for trans people in your workplace, writing your representatives about laws related to trans people, and working to make sure that systems you are involved in are trans-inclusive. 

Does none of this sound direct or effective enough? Are you a financially stable person with privilege? The most immediate way to make an impact for young trans people fighting for their survival is to give money to them directly. Here are some twitter accounts that crowdsource black trans people who need help paying their bills:

Black Trans Futures

Trans hoodoo funds

Pay Black Trans Women

Keep an eye out for trans people in your social media network who are crowdsourcing for their survival, and make a point to donate to them. More than signing a petition, you can be sure that you had a part in taking care of a trans member in your community.

Survival in America is difficult enough these days. Making the existence of trans children into a moral panic is a cynical and cowardly move by transphobic lawmakers who are attempting to draw focus away from failures of governance. But at the end of the day, we are all suffering from these failures of governance, and the best way to continue to move forward is to dedicate ourselves to the notion that every life has value by supporting each other.

Resources:

Moral Panic: Who Benefits From Public Fear?

The Gender Binary Is a Tool of White Supremacy

 ‘Trans kids are not new’: a historian on the long record of youth transitioning in America

Trans Week of Visibility and Action

Supporting the Transgender People in Your Life: A Guide to Being a Good Ally

Amelia Meman (they/them and she/her), GWST ’15, is the interim director of the Women’s Center. They have worked in the Women’s Center as an intern, a student staff member, a volunteer, and now professional staff member. This is a loving retrospective on Take Back the Night (TBTN), written in the third spring semester where UMBC has not been able to hold such an event.

Author’s Note: I am proud to say that I have been to every single Take Back the Night since its revival on UMBC’s campus in 2013. This does not mean I am an expert on this event nor that my opinion of Take Back the Night is shared by the thousands who have taken part in this event throughout the past nine years. Because Take Back the Night is such a shared experience, I reached out to some alumni who have experienced TBTN as attendees, volunteers, and leaders. You will see their contributions throughout. Thank you, Yoo-Jin, Autumn, Calista, Hannah, and Sydney.

As we share our spring semester with the pandemic once again, I know I and many of our community members are deeply disappointed to not be able to come together for Take Back the Night. Even more alarming, however, is that many folks don’t know what it is to miss Take Back the Night because they’ve never experienced it. 

Our last in-person Take Back the Night was in 2019 and most recently (2021), Jess Myers alongside several student activists and campus partners, created the Take Back the Night Virtual Experience. Before that, the Women’s Center staff and community co-created a zine called “Survivors to the Front,” which invited survivors of gender-based violence to submit their creative works–whether visual art or written word. 

These online options have been balms in an otherwise quiet series of Sexual Assault Awareness Months (SAAM) for the Women’s Center. Normally, April is a huge month for the Women’s Center with [at minimum] weekly programming and often a full, month-long calendar of events, workshops, and educational opportunities offered through various departments on campus. 

The major event of April (and for many, the entire school year) is Take Back the Night. In the last 3 years, however, we have not been able to host this event. And that’s why I’m writing this blogpost: because it’s been a long time and in addition to cultivating the hope that we can one day bring Take Back the Night back to its glory days as a large in-person, campus-wide event, I hope to preserve just a little bit of this institutional memory.

A Very Brief History of Take Back the Night at UMBC*

In 1971, a group of feminist advocates and survivors hosted the first-ever rape speak-out in New York. A few years later, one of the first “Take Back the Night” marches was held in Philadelphia, PA in October 1975.

UMBC (from what we can tell from the archives), held their first TBTN event in the early 2000s for just a few years. Campus stopped hosting it for several years so as to be in solidarity with other area colleges by participating in Baltimore City Hall’s Take Back the Night. But, by 2013, it made the most sense for us to bring back our own Take Back the Night. So the Women’s Center with support from UHS’s Health Education, Greek Week, and a BreakingGround grant did just that. Since Spring 2014, this campus-wide rally and march against sexual violence has been a signature Women’s Center event every April. Each year the Women’s Center hosts survivor speak-out followed by a campus march against sexual assault. When marchers return, UMBC’s TBTN spends the rest of the evening doing “craftivism” art healing projects and hosting a community resource fair. A smaller version of the Clothesline Project also serves as a backdrop to the evening’s events.

*Thank you to Kayla Smith, who wrote “What You Need To Need Know: Take Back The Night & Its History” in 2017; almost all of this information is from that resource.

How did Take Back the Night work at UMBC?

Take Back the Night starts on The Commons’ Main Street with the Survivor Speak Out. On the third Thursday of April, we take over this campus nexus with a mini-Clothesline Project display, microphones, speakers, a ton of folding chairs, resource tables, and hand-painted rally signs. The Speak-Out provides an open opportunity for survivors of power-based violence to tell their stories out loud, in front of an audience.

It was the first time I really identified as a survivor publicly and put myself in that vulnerable position. I remember the wave of emotions while we marched–anger, happiness, relief, anxiety–and how beautiful it was to just feel those things as they came.

Sydney (she/her)

This is a strategic location as it is one of the most heavily trafficked areas of campus. You might ask, “But aren’t the Survivor Speak-Out and the Clothesline Project a little disruptive for all the folks in The Commons?” The answer is yes, and that’s the point. Take Back the Night is placed in such a way that we can bring people together whether they’re attending the event on purpose or walking through and experiencing it randomly.

And that’s how many folks come to be involved in Take Back the Night–they stumble upon this big public event and get wrapped up in the stories they hear over the speakers. For Calista’s (she/her) first speak-out, she was a witness to the power of the event which caused a mixture of emotions: “My first experience felt very comforting seeing others being there for each other. It was also challenging to be in a space that reminded me so much of my trauma — but ultimately made me feel less alone.” 

We have heard this reaction echoed in a number of other participants. Survivors are given the opportunity to stand up at a microphone and speak their truth; the result is raw, unfiltered vulnerability and power. Some survivors recall every last detail of their assault. Where it occurred, what they were wearing, who the perpetrator was… Others only talk about what happened in the aftermath. Regardless of what is shared, each person who comes up to the mic speaks their truth and the audience bears witness. 

Autumn Cook (M29, ‘21) actually experienced her first TBTN from the front of the stage as one of our TBTN leaders. As a leader, they provide background information about TBTN and also start the Survivor Speak-Out by sharing their own story. Of their first experience, Autumn said:

Jesus. My first TBTN at UMBC was my first year on campus [in 2017]. Before then, I had never interacted with the Women’s Center  – either because I didn’t super know what they did or that I was too scared too. But during the lead up to TBTN and aftermath, it felt like I found a family within the Women’s Center. I was one of the intro speakers for TBTN and getting up in front of the massive crowd was fun and illuminating. I was able to share my truth and afterwards I felt loved and seen by everyone in the crowd. The environment of support was like a big warm hug, enveloping and unending.

Autumn Cook (M29, ‘21)

And still others experienced TBTN by working the event, like Sydney (she/her):

My first experience with TBTN, I was actually interning with The Monument Quilt. I was completely moved by the survivor speak out and the feeling of the community in the air. I remember watching survivor after survivor get up, being struck by their bravery and thinking “I couldn’t do that,” yet feeling heard and seen and accepted regardless. It was also the first true time I think I accepted my own assault and what that meant. I knew [TBTN] was something I needed to be involved in moving forward.

Sydney (she/her)

Following the energy that builds in the Speak-Out, we mobilize all of the people who have gathered as witnesses and speakers to march across campus and demand visibility, justice, and healing for survivors. 

We call on folks to move.

We hand out rally signs to anybody who wants to hold one.

We bring out the megaphones and we line up.

The march is divided with survivors at the front and UMBC community supporters bringing up the back. Marchers are given cards that have different rally chants written on them and line leaders are spread amongst the marchers. Once the march begins, leaders use their megaphones to start chants and direct people along the march route. The number is different at each TBTN, but the march group usually consists of approx. 250 campus community members.

The march is loud and big. Its meant to grab people’s attention, just like the Survivor Speak-Out. Hannah Wilcove, GWST ‘19 remembered her “first encounter was seeing the march pass by me as I was walking back to my dorm freshman year and feeling a kinship with everyone participating that I couldn’t explain. Next year, I wanted to get more involved with the Women’s Center so I volunteered and participated for the first time.”

Many of the people I spoke to have experienced the march from the frontlines and share vivid memories of the emotions that are at play while walking through campus. For Sydney: “It was the first time I really identified as a survivor publicly and put myself in that vulnerable position. I remember the wave of emotions while we marched–anger, happiness, relief, anxiety–and how beautiful it was to just feel those things as they came.”

Yoo-Jin Kang, MLL & INDS ‘15 also remembers the rush as she maneuvered the march around campus: “Leading the march with dearest Kayla Smith. Walking alongside powerful survivors, shouting into a mic, and looking back to see a huge line following behind us. I still have chills thinking about it.”

The march goes all the way around campus starting at the southern entrance of The Commons, going east toward True Grits (and sometimes inside True Grits) and up around the Residence Halls before turning northwards and moving up the hill toward Library Pond. From the pond, the march hangs left to go all the way down Academic Row and stops at the statue of True Grit in front of the Administration Building and The RAC. 

Recently, the march has added this stop around the True Grit statue so that marchers can circle up with survivors in the center and allies on the outside. The survivor circle rests with one another while the community continues to bear witness and offer respect.

Healing from trauma isn’t linear, but healing can happen and it does happen.

After regrouping in the circles, the march crosses the Quad diagonally and heads back to The Commons. Once inside, participants are met with a once again transformed Main Street. Where there were chairs and microphones for the Survivor Speak-Out there are now big circular tables with crafting materials available for folks to decompress through art, food and drinks to refresh themselves, and music blasting on the speakers so people can dance it out. 

Every part of Take Back the Night is my favorite part, but this ending back at Main Street is really distinct. No matter the feelings that have erupted during the last few hours in the speak out and march we can all come back together to breathe. Breathe. Eat a cookie. Breathe. And laugh.

 It might be as biologically simple as the flood of endorphins that comes after something painful or difficult… but it feels magical and powerful. We come back to where we had started… and the space is transformed but so are we. Healing from trauma isn’t linear, but healing can happen and it does happen.

What did UMBC’s Take Back the Night feel like?

It’s different for every person and often different minute-by-minute within the event itself, but for many, TBTN is a time of “firsts.” For Yoo-Jin, “TBTN was one of the first times I saw survivor voices lifted up in a public and unapologetic way. It was the first time I shared about my survivor story in public (and cried lots doing it).” With one of the goals of Take Back the Night being to take up space and push things often shrouded by private shame out into the public space, it can act as a catalyst for many as they work to understand their own trauma and their identities as survivors.

Sydney said that TBTN played a major part in her own identity development and growth as a survivor as it “allowed me to come to terms with the fact that I was sexually assaulted and work through all the emotions that came with it. Over the years attending, I was able to come to terms not only with the event but how I wanted to handle it. I didn’t want to do [the] Survivor Speak-Out but I did want to be there to feel community and then to march and let my story out that way.”

As identity-defining and cathartic as Take Back the Night is… it’s also really and honestly hard.

For as much time as I can take extolling high praise, I could also tell you about how deeply it has rocked myself and so many others that I know. Throughout the event, you are made to listen to stories of violence and abuse. As a witness to the Speak-Out, you play an important part in holding space and honoring others’ stories, but that does take energy and emotional endurance. A lot of people (especially those who shared their stories with me) have been able to reckon with Take Back the Night as something extremely positive, but it can also feel agonizing. 

Autumn Cook remembered this duality:

Take Back the Night is a really difficult event to attend. It’s almost impossible to not squirm or react to some of the stories that people share, but that is part of the event. We are all living in each other’s horrendous truths and healing together. You’re supposed to be uncomfortable at TBTN. It means that you’re taking in what is happening and processing it. It’s horrible and liberating and healthy.

Autumn Cook (M29, ‘21)

How has Take Back the Night changed over the years?

One of the most beautiful aspects about Take Back the Night is that it’s always growing with our campus. It grows from year to year. It grows with you. Where Calista started as a spectator, she eventually grew to tell her own story… and then to leading the speak out. Calista spoke of this growth as she recalled how she “struggled a lot with my assault and the process of regaining my voice —  but TBTN empowered me.”

One person noted that they are still trying to find an outlet similar to Take Back the Night: “I have been looking for TBTN marches or something similar since graduating because I have wanted to share my experience. I don’t think I’d feel ready to do so if I hadn’t participated in it while at UMBC.”

If you look at some of the pictures in this blogpost, you might see the same people show up during different TBTN years. The shirts might look different or their hair might be a little longer. There are different shirts hung up in the Clothesline Project display. The weather during the march goes from sunny to cloudy.

The event has changed each year we’ve put it on to answer the needs and values of our campus community. For example, our march route was adapted to include an accessible route for those with mobility disabilities; previously, stairs were an obstacle for some as they participated in the march. Now we have an accessibility route that is not only available, but has a dedicated volunteer leading folks.

A Personal Reflection + A Conclusion

To be totally honest, I am writing this blogpost for partially selfish reasons… I desperately want to feel the power of Take Back the Night and I am sincerely regretful that I will not have been able to bring Take Back the Night back to UMBC’s campus by the time I start my own next chapter. 

There are many reasons why I wanted to work in the Women’s Center and why I love my job now; a big one is Take Back the Night. Over the course of my time at UMBC, I have proudly been present for every single iteration of TBTN since it was revived by Jess and the team in 2013. However, as an undergraduate, I had not yet been able to identify as a survivor nor what I had experienced as abusive.

I worked in the Women’s Center from 2013 to 2015, I was a Gender, Women’s, + Sexuality Studies major, and I had been learning about sexual violence prevention and response work throughout that time but it had never occurred to me to consider my own story and my own experiences. It was only after graduating from UMBC, returning to the Women’s Center as a professional staff member, and a lot of therapy that I began to consider how I might be a survivor… how I am a survivor. My identity and my roles changed–changing my own relationship with TBTN. And TBTN changed again when I began working with student survivors and then again after the September 2018 lawsuit and subsequent Retriever Courage campus activism. 

I mention all of this because we are all growing. We are all welcoming new aspects of ourselves–and similarly, Take Back the Night is bound to change. The power Take Back the Night has is in the change it creates for each person who interacts with it. 

The power Take Back the Night has is in the change it creates for each person who interacts with it.

Right now, Take Back the Night looks different because it must, but that’s not a death sentence so much as it is an opportunity to welcome and cultivate change.

Perhaps, Take Back the Night will resume its live, in-person status in the Spring of 2023. I have hope that it will. And as much as I worry that it won’t look or feel like the Take Back the Night that I remember… the shared memory that people like Autumn, Sydney, Yoo-Jin, Hannah, Calista and I will continue to hold power and the institutional history of Take Back the Night will only grow. And that’s where the magic of TBTN is and always has been–with the people who are there to witness, the people who speak truth to power, and the people who demand space, time, energy for radical acts of healing.

More information about UMBC’s TBTN:

What You Need to Know About Take Back the Night Series

Take Back the Night at UMBC: Virtual Experience

Survivors to the Front: A Call to Witness Zine (2020)

Marybeth Mareski, m33@umbc.edu

Headshot of Author

Positionality Statement: This post is written by Marybeth Mareski, a Returning Women’s Scholar and social work intern at the Women’s Center in her final year at UMBC. I am a white person who will be the first person to graduate college in my family. I use she/her and they/them pronouns, often call myself a she/her boy, and while I don’t identify as trans, I also don’t feel comfortable calling myself cis. When trying to summarize my sexual orientation, I tend to arrive at queer butch lesbian, in order to align myself with the radical strain of queer politics, identify that I dress and style myself in a masculine fashion, and to indicate that in the past I have primarily dated women or nonbinary people. I write this post to marvel at how the internet has transformed as a resource to queer people from my childhood to present time, and in support of all queer people trying to exist authentically under settler-colonial capitalism. 

When I was coming of age as a young queer person in the late 1900s, the internet was just coming into form as a public place. This was the heady time of Geocities, fansites, and bulletin boards. My own personal digital journey through queerness was facilitated by my deep love of Sailor Moon, about which I collaborated on fanfiction with queer themes, where I explored my understanding of what queer love might be like in conversation with other fans of the show. I learned about queer sex through Scarleteen, an inclusive and feminist sex education site for teens, and the Savage Love archives, a (now widely regarded as problematic) kink-positive advice column written by Dan Savage that originated in alternative newspapers, and was definitely not for teens. 

Image Description: A Netscape browser showing a geocities website with a pink background of tiled images of Sailor Moon and rainbow text saying Sailor Moon Power

I navigated a sort of nebulous online space, based primarily in fandom, my only representation of queerness coming from television, movies, anime, bands I liked, or in stories from people older than me. No one that I knew was out. With very few exceptions, I was the only queer person that I knew. Facebook didn’t exist until I graduated from high school. Tumblr didn’t exist until I (would have) graduated from college. I was forced, agonizingly, to forge my own path.

My teacher friend told me a story recently that really illustrated how different things are today. When she was teaching sixth graders last year over Zoom, a pair of her students were doing a presentation about the Daughters of Bilitis, one of the first lesbian organizations founded in the United States. Suddenly after the presentation, kids started coming out in the chat. Queer, pan, asexual, demisexual. Bunches of eleven year olds, sharing their LGBTQ identities with each other, and receiving nothing but support. It was heartwarming, but it also made me wonder: where did these tweens encounter this vocabulary? 

At that age, I was spending all of my time researching LGBTQ topics, looking for books with homoerotic subtext, and sneaking peeks at LGBTQ magazines. It was a topic that drew me in completely, but I knew that I had to keep my interest a secret. The comments in my family that acknowledged the existence of gay people were very hostile. Unlike ethnic or religious minorities, being LGBTQ is usually not a culture taught by the family. Indeed, when a young queer person comes to terms with their own identity, they usually keep it hidden from others, especially the family, for fear of repercussions — LGBTQ teens are 140% more likely to be homeless than straight teens, in great part due to rejection by their families (Morton et al, 2017). Queer kids have to learn about being queer from somewhere, and social media and the internet is right there on their phones. And it is full of more queer content, creators, and community than I could have ever imagined when I was a queer teen.

As an 11-year old, I encountered the lesbian couple in Sailor Moon and was entranced. I developed a crush on the butch. Not too long after, I sat on the bus waiting to leave school and watched my fellow middle schoolers walk by and realized, ‘Oh. I think girls are cute. I guess that I am bisexual.’ And then a couple of years went by, and I noticed that I hadn’t thought about boys in all that time, and I thought, ‘Oh. I guess I’m a lesbian!’

Image description: A gif of Sailor Uranus, a short-haired androgynous blonde in a mustard-colored blazer, winking from the driver’s side of an open car.

Meanwhile, here are the terms I have encountered on TikTok over the past two days: Xenogender. Puzzlegender. Genderfluid demisexual. Abrosexual demiboy. When talking to my teacher friend about her students using labels like these, I thought, if all of these terms were available to me when I was eleven, I don’t know how I would have spent time doing anything but trying to pick one out! What an alluring banquet of possible ways of understanding oneself.

Personally, my own experience of my gender expression and sexual orientation has changed plenty throughout my life, based on personal experience, the overall culture trends, and through relationships I’ve formed with other people. In my teens and early twenties, though I thought of myself basically as a boy, I had too much internalized homophobia to dress in as masculine a fashion as I do now. I would see lesbians dressing in men’s clothes and feel repulsed and judgmental, thinking, I may be a lesbian, but I’m not one of those lesbians! 

Reader, I am one of those lesbians. I just had to learn to love myself and the idea of being a lesbian.

Image description: Vintage photograph from the 70s showing a white woman grinning proudly, wearing a homemade t-shirt that reads ‘I am a lesbian’

But lesbian is only one of the words that I use for myself, and it certainly doesn’t feel like a complete representation. It is suitable for certain contexts, as when I am drawing a comparison to mainstream culture, and inadequate in other contexts, as when I am describing my sexuality to other queer people. At times it feels like a word I fling in proud defiance against those who may judge me, and at other times it feels like a word that connotes an out-of-touch understanding of gender that is insufficiently nuanced. When we are using labels to describe who we are, we are attempting to describe an experience that is messy and cannot be contained, no matter how many labels are available to us. Understanding how we long to express ourselves and how we relate to others is a lifelong learning process, and these labels are simply outfits to try on along the way. Some of them will feel better than others! Some of them will give us delight for a short while, and some of them we will grow comfortable with over a lifetime. In the process of attempting to use language to describe ourselves, which is a venture that is forever doomed to failure, we can look at these labels like playing dress up. 

Image description: a gif from the movie Clueless of a finger pressing the ‘browse’ button on computer representation of different tops and bottoms scrolling to form a matching outfit.

The propagating multitudes of microsexualites on TikTok seems innocent enough. Any pathway to self-understanding and acceptance, however convoluted, is probably a net benefit to the world. Other avenues of exploring sexuality and gender identity online, however, are more questionable. 

Enter Solace, the app at the forefront of tracking your transition. Solace purports to offer information and resources to trans people about their goals and progress, but in the process it presents a very binary imagining of transness. Sample goals are “Building a Feminine Wardrobe,” “Men’s Hairstyling,” or “Facial Feminization Surgery.” Worse, nearly every “goal” has a tie-in advertisement for a service. The feminine wardrobe goal links to a styling service you can purchase. The hairstyling and facial feminization surgery goals mention how expensive such goals can be, and links to their sister financial management app, Bliss. Because nothing brings bliss like having enough money to finance your binary transition!

Image description: an iPhone displaying a screen from the Solace app. Options read: Legal, 290 Goals Available. Medical, 72 Goals Available, Lifestyle, 36 Goals Available

Solace in particular demonstrates the transition that the internet has made towards prioritization of commerce from my childhood to today. In the early days (1994 and before), the internet was primarily a small community of people exploring their interests. 

As the profitability of the dot com boom made the financial opportunities of the internet clear, a culture of capitalism began to overtake a culture of community on the internet. The commercialization of the internet means that every subgroup is a target audience for a company’s product. As marginalized groups gain ‘acceptance’ in mainstream society, they become profitable demographics to extract resources from. The creator of Solace, who goes by RKA, is a trans woman who designed the app and launched it with venture capital raised from Hilary Clinton. This situates it firmly within the internet start-up tradition — though this app may have been created to provide guidance for trans people, it is also a business designed to make money from trans people. 

Ultimately, these words from RKA herself point to one of the bigger problems with Solace. “At the end of the day, I’m just looking for a conformist experience,” she says. “I’m just looking to blend in. And so the idea of being part of a community felt almost opposed to my transition goals.” Aiming for a transition that is a conformist experience is in opposition to the life-affirming magic of the chaos of queerness, and doing so in solitude rejects one of the tenets of queer survival: community. 

There is no app that can replace seeing and being seen by people who understand you because they have had similar experiences to yours. There is no app that will replace the mutual aid required by people on the margins of a society that has massive barriers to health care. A ‘conformist’ transition is seeking the affirmation of mainstream society and holding up the very values that make life difficult for trans people to begin with. 

Image description: A drawing of six people of color of varying gender expressions gazing directly at the viewer. *

Ultimately, apps like Solace do not feel like a pathway to self-understanding and acceptance. They feel like a funnel to one vision of being trans, which is transitioning to one side of the binary, and passing. 

Queerness is about being against the status quo. Discovering your own queerness should be about imagining new forms of expression. Being queer is about expanding your idea of what is possible, not constricting it. Even though micro identities funnel that exploration into identity labels, at least there seem to be countless identity labels. With Solace, though there are many ‘goals,’ most of them are ways of exploring the ends of the gender binary, without being in conversation with other people, or seeing examples of the variety of experiences of real trans people. It obscures the creativity and playfulness of real trans lives.

The excitement that I felt seeing Sailor Uranus and learning that butchness could be attractive enabled me to explore my nascent butchness, step by tiny step. Through connecting with an online community around Sailor Moon, I found people to share my passions and talk about my experiences with. I created art based off the characters and shared it online with no expectation of making money, and without anyone asking for money from me. At least in the online world where I came of age, the only ones making money off of my exploration of my identity were people selling Sailor Moon merchandise. 

*Image taken from Creating Accomplices Workshop Applicable to Everyone | Office for Institutional Equity and Diversity | NC State University 

Resources and Recommendations 

Morton, M.H., Dworsky, A., & Samuels, G.M. (2017). Missed opportunities: Youth homelessness in America. National estimates. Chicago, IL: Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago.

What are micro-sexualities and why are people arguing about them?

TikTok’s LGBTQ+ Discourse is Just a Re-Run of Tumblr

Solace Is an App That Helps Trans People Transition

Trans Liberation? There’s No App for That 

Image description: [Photo shows Rachael dressed in black attire, one of the Women’s Center interns, smiling in front of one of the UMBC buildings.]

Content Note: This post is written by Rachael Joslow, a second-year and student staff at the Women’s Center. I am a transracial adoptee adopted from Vietnam who grew up in Georgia for most of my childhood and adolescent life. I hope to highlight my experience growing up as an adopted child who dealt with difficulties connecting to my ethnicity and race. I would like you, as the reader, to acknowledge and learn the realities of adoption through my experiences, personal readings, and different transracial adoptees’ perspectives.

Growing up, I was always taught and still firmly believe that being blood-related is not a condition to be a part of someone’s family. As a transracial adoptee of a single, white, tie-dye hippie mom, I have been lucky enough to grow up knowing I was loved unconditionally.

Nonetheless, there are certain inside jokes that only those of us who have grown up in a transracial adoptive relationship know about. For example, when I think about one of the most memorable moments I have had as an adopted child, I remember my mom embarrassing me in public and trying to introduce me to her friends. After saying anything in a loud, funny voice or performing a funny dance in public, she would also try to point towards me and say, “yes, this is Rachael, my daughter!” When these moments happened, I would start walking away from her during the conversation, acting as a random stranger. Once she realized what I was doing, she would then reach out to me and exclaim, “no, really, she is my daughter! Rachael, stop walking away!” This interaction is one of the entertaining aspects of being adopted: if your parent is embarrassing you in public, simply walk away.

[Image description: An older woman with a brown-haired ponytail sitting in a wooden chair with a baby in her arms. She’s wearing a pink shirt with jean shorts, and the baby is wearing a white onesie.]

My mom first saw me in an ad in the newspaper one day because she was looking to adopt. She was stationed in Germany at Fort Landstuhl, where she worked as a neurologist at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. She always wanted to have a family, and in fact, she thought she was going to get married after college and have four children, but as some things turn out . . . plans change! In the picture shown to the left of this text, it was her first time meeting me at my foster home, and I believe I was 7-8 months old in that. I looked pretty cute as a baby! Apparently, I was a mellow infant and I only cried when food was late. As in, I scream cried. I was a moody baby if I did not have food on my plate and it still applies to my age now. Some things never change!

“What was it like being told that you were adopted?”

Well, I was the one who figured it out! My mom tells me that when I was about 5 years old, we were sitting in the bathroom getting ready for bed, and I started saying, “we don’t have the same hair.” My mom would reply with a “yes…” and wait to see what would happen next. I then say, “we don’t have the same eyes,” and she goes, “you’re right.” “I didn’t grow in your belly,” and mom keeps responding truthfully as to not hide anything from me. A delayed response follows from me, and my mom was worried but curious about what else I was about to ask. After the pause, I ask her, “can you pass me the toothpaste?” My mom releases a sigh and passes me the toothbrush.

[Image description: An Asian girl with long black hair is shown standing in front of a door with pink sunglasses on and carrying a purse that has Disney Princesses on it. She is wearing black pants and a flower print, blacktop.]

As you can see from this interaction, I was unphased that I was not her biological daughter, and I am still unphased by the fact that I am adopted. It still does not change that I have my mom, and she has me, her daughter. She always has and will continue to love me unconditionally, I know—the bare minimum. Still, through her kindness, openness, acceptance, and much more, I realized how she’ll always have my back over time. She was also really transparent with me whenever I asked questions about my adoption. For some background knowledge, there are no names under “biological mother and biological father” on my Vietnamese birth certificate. My mom has always been honest whenever I asked her questions regarding that information. I used to be open to finding my biological parents, but now that I have become older, I am content to not meet them. I settled that I’m sure that my biological parents wanted what was best for me. Through UMBC, I have connected with my Vietnamese culture more by meeting people and joining the Vietnamese Student Association.

“What are other transracial adoptee’s experiences?”

Although my experiences have been smooth and supportive so far, my personal experience is not shared by ALL transracial adoptees. This NPR podcast called Code Switch: Transracial Adoptees On Their Racial Identity And Sense of Self calls in multiple adoptees who talk about their personal feelings and experiences about their adoption. One person stated that they spent the first 12 years of their life thinking that they were white, and learning that they were not white resulted in an identity crisis. Some transracial adoptees are not told that they are adopted, and the consequences can be very harmful. It makes us think as to why the parent was hiding that critical information. Telling children that they are adopted is okay, and it should not be something to hide from them because it erases a part of their identity. Another adoptee mentioned that their adoption acted as a narrative of their mother being a savior. Unfortunately, some people end up adopting because of their savior complex.

What is the savior complex?

As explained by this Psychology Today article The Savior Complex, it is “a psychological construct that makes a person feel the need to save other people. This person has a strong tendency to seek people who desperately need help and to assist them, often sacrificing their own needs for these people.” When a person with a savior complex sets out to adopt a child, they have the goal of rescuing a child from their situation.

As a reminder to people who would like to adopt in the future, it is not about you, and it has never been about you. Adopted children are not your trophies and we should never be used as tools when you want to earn brownie points to “look like a good person.”

Adoption is about giving a home to a child who does not have a family, and it should revolve around giving the child unconditional love and support. It does not revolve around reminding them how grateful they should be that you adopted them. From an article called Avoiding the Savior Complex in Adoption, an adoptive parent explains it well in a letter to their adoptive child:

“You never have to feel grateful for your adoption. We don’t have to have special gratitude for something that is inherently ours. And my love? That’s yours. It was yours before we met. It will be yours when time is gone. It was, and is, your right to have. My love for you is something I want to be so part of your being that it doesn’t cross your mind to even contemplate its existence. Take it for granted. Assume it will always be there. Because it will. There were losses in your lives. I know them. I respect them. My love for you does not take away those losses. But those losses don’t mean you owe us some form of special gratitude. Don’t ever believe someone who tells you they do. I don’t need you to be grateful; I want you to know, to assume, to not even think that there was another option except me loving you. Because there wasn’t. This love? It was here waiting for you all along. You simply claimed what was already yours.“

– Anonymous

“Is it hard being adopted?”

[Image description: Rachael at her Bat Mitzvah and she’s standing in front of the Torah. She is wearing a tallit, a prayer shawl, and a kippah, a religious headwear in Judaism.]

Being adopted is amazing. Even though I have a different origin story, I’ve always known that I was adopted so it has never been a big deal for me. For me, it is as normal as me having brown eyes; it has always been there. What’s been harder to deal with is others’ perceptions of me. My insecurities about my identity came from outsiders’ comments and people’s perceptions of me. My mom and I have received many weird and uncomfortable comments, but one that I often remember is, “you know she’s going to be raised by strangers, right?” This was not said in front of me; it was actually told to my mom before she signed the papers to bring me home. As mentioned above, my mom is a single parent, and she has done an extraordinary job making me feel secure and loved growing up. As she worked long hours, I would go to daycare after the school day during elementary until I was old enough to stay at the house by myself for a few hours. To that comment now, I would like to say, “yeah! I was raised by strangers, but those strangers became family to me”. My mom had a vast support system, and I understood that although my family structure was different, she still had the same level of care and love for me as any other family.

The comments don’t end at my mom; they came to me too. I received a few judgemental statements during high school, and a common one was how I was white-washed and not really Asian. I wanted to say in response to these comments, “who cares?!” However, a part of me felt alienated from people because although I felt I was Asian from my looks, I still did not feel Asian enough. I was given this label that I couldn’t do certain things. Since I had a white mom, some people had an attitude of “oh, so that’s how it is.” During high school, I felt stuck on who I was and what I was supposed to be. I couldn’t control what was happening to me, and I couldn’t control the fact that I was adopted; why is there so much judgment towards me?

[Image description:The art picture depicts three people standing on a podium in a crowd of people inside what looks to be an art museum. The three people show two parents with their child in the middle who is holding their hands. The picture is from: Stories of transracial adoptees must be heard – even uncomfortable ones.]

Other transracial adoptees have also experienced this same disconnect between their personal social identities and their adoptive families. The article The Transracial Adoption Paradox reported that about 37% of transracial adoptees felt that race made growing up difficult. This YouTube video called “Do All Adoptees Think the Same?, from the YouTube channel Jubilee, brings in 6 adoptees who all come from different backgrounds, and each brings their own perspectives on the relationship between adoption and identity. One of the adoptees, Alexis, had a more challenging time growing up with her white family as an Asian person. When her adoptive family laughed at her when she said she wanted to be white, it showed a lack of sensitivity, kindness, and understanding. Unfortunately, this has destroyed their relationship now that she’s an adult and is now distant between them. Another adoptee in the video, Rebekah, stated how she was called “oreo” growing up because of her background. Whenever she would try to bring up race or racism against her, she would receive comments like “oh, they didn’t mean it like that” or “they’re just from the older generation, and they don’t understand.”

[Image description: Rachael holding her cat named Girl Kitty while sitting on a leather couch when she was 11 years old.]

As parents, especially white parents, you need to be prepared to have those conversations about race. When transracial adoptees go to their white parents about how they experience racism, their first response should not be silence or anger because we, as transracial adoptees, are not trying to make it as if it’s our parent’s fault—we want to have this conversation to improve our relationship with parents. We want our parents to learn about racism, prejudice, and white privilege, and work hard to be strong allies. We want our white parents to understand that it is not their fault that we experience racism, but it is their fault if they’re not there to help us. When it comes to addressing and confronting ignorance and racism, being a parent as well as an ally means making it clear that you are always willing to answer our questions, always available to talk about even the most difficult or hurtful experiences, and always there to advocate for us, assist in our healing, or simply share our pain in any way you are able.

Recommended Videos

Others’ experiences of adoption and family history: Adoption & Identity Intertwined

Do All Adoptees Think the Same? | Spectrum

Netflix Show – Colin in Black & White: Colin Kaepernick narrates this drama series recounting his formative years navigating race, class, and culture while aspiring for greatness.

Recommended Readings

The Realities of Raising a Kid of a Different Race

Transracial Adoption in the Time of Black Lives Matter

How to talk to parents about race if you’re adopted or multiracial

Race and Identity in Transracial Adoption: Suggestions for Adoptive Parents

The Transracial Adoption Paradox

Stories of transracial adoptees must be heard – even uncomfortable ones

Avoiding the Savior Complex in Adoption

NPR Podcast – Code Switch: Transracial Adoptees On Their Racial Identity And Sense of Self

Image description: A formal headshot of the author.

Positionality Statement: This post is written by Ojuswani Phogat, a second-year student at UMBC and a student-staff member at the Women’s Center.  I am a South Asian American woman who has felt the persistent effects of diet culture first-hand. In writing this blog, I hope to identify these impacts and uncover the systems of oppression that keep them afloat. As a reader, I wish to encourage you to alter the way you pass judgment on yourself and others. The more we engage in fatphobic rhetoric, which stems from white supremacy and the patriarchy, the more we uphold these oppressive systems. To all my fellow women of color who have ever been made to feel like less because of the way you look: I hope you learn that you have always been enough. 

Diet Culture & Women of Color

The Implications of the Small Feminine Body 

There is also a physical element to the requirement of smallness for feminine bodies. It operates under the assumption that women should occupy as little space as physically possible so as to keep their positions of power stifled. The presumption is that women—as the “submissive” gender—must bolster male masculinity by embodying the opposite characteristics of what men possess. By this “rule,” if men are meant to be large to monopolize space and contribute to their dominance, women must then be as small as possible to make “smaller” men adhere to this expectation. Women alone must assume the burden of changing themselves to allow for men to conform to the ideals they have set. Straying away from this ideal—embodying fatness and taking up greater space as a woman—means undermining these systems of the patriarchy that award men greater dominion over the world. 

For women of color who reside in the western world, the pursuit of femininity means the expectation of smallness is compounded by the need (for survival purposes) to shed their melanin and present as light-skinned as possible. Because society masculinizes women of color, specifically brown and black women, they must pursue femininity more extremely because of their skin color. If not, they are ridiculed and solidify their low position on the social ladder. Because of this they feel a greater emphasis to conform to the ideals of western femininity, which encompasses the prerequisite of smallness. In doing so, they may often feel at odds with connecting to the traditional cultural foods they grew up with and abiding by the rules of the society in which they reside.  

Imperialism’s production of the beauty standard—the necessity of thinness and whiteness—for women and girls in places like India portrays this phenomenon at work. The colonial impact left by Persia and Britain in South Asia has ingrained ideologies about correct body shape, colorism, and anti-blackness.

Image Description: Pictured is a scene from the era of British rule in India. Depicted are British soldiers, dressed in red and white garments, invading an Indian palace. The soldiers hold rifles and clouds of smoke surround them.  

Since the reign of the Mughals and later the British East India Company, Indian culture has been defined by the idea that the highest cultural capital^** is awarded to those of lighter skin and less weight. Because conforming more to this ideal cultural behavior meant increasing one’s socio-economic status, adhering to the beauty standard was a matter of SURVIVAL. It meant that the closer you were to being this standard the better you would be treated by the foreigners who had come to rule your land and who controlled economic and social production within it.

Image Description: Pictured is an infographic made up of a light tan background created by Taylor Wolfram. It says “6 Ways to Be a Fat Ally”. And lists “ treat fat people with respect and dignity, call out fatphobia when you hear it and see it, seek out fat stories from fat people, believe fat people, ask restaurants, bars, special event venues, etc, to provide size-inclusive seating options, take fat friends and family to fat-accessible spaces”. 

So with these foundational elements of diet culture’s impact in mind, we can then ask ourselves:

I know what you’re thinking: these tips are much easier said than done. And you are correct! But, this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t hold ourselves accountable when we say or think about bodies negatively. It also means that if you are being degraded for your appearance: STAND UP FOR YOURSELF! Real change can only be possible when we—women of color—learn that we are worthy of taking up space in this world. 

Footnotes

* The act of alienating something by highlighting its “abnormal” characteristics

** The amount of societal status one is given based on various factors (i.e., education, skills, wealth, and discussed the most in this case appearance) 

Resources and recommendations you should be sure to check out: 

Image description: A formal headshot of the author.

Positionality Statement: This post is written by Ojus Phogat, a second-year student at UMBC and a student-staff member at the Women’s Center.  I am a South Asian American woman who has felt the persistent effects of diet culture first-hand. In writing this blog, I hope to identify these impacts and uncover the systems of oppression that keep them afloat. As a reader, I wish to encourage you to alter the way you pass judgment on yourself and others. The more we engage in fatphobic rhetoric, which stems from white supremacy and the patriarchy, the more we uphold these oppressive systems. To all my fellow women of color who have ever been made to feel like less because of the way you look: I hope you learn that you have always been enough. 

Diet Culture & Women of Color

The Implications of the Small Feminine Body 

There is also a physical element to the requirement of smallness for feminine bodies. It operates under the assumption that women should occupy as little space as physically possible so as to keep their positions of power stifled. The presumption is that women—as the “submissive” gender—must bolster male masculinity by embodying the opposite characteristics of what men possess. By this “rule,” if men are meant to be large to monopolize space and contribute to their dominance, women must then be as small as possible to make “smaller” men adhere to this expectation. Women alone must assume the burden of changing themselves to allow for men to conform to the ideals they have set. Straying away from this ideal—embodying fatness and taking up greater space as a woman—means undermining these systems of the patriarchy that award men greater dominion over the world. 

For women of color who reside in the western world, the pursuit of femininity means the expectation of smallness is compounded by the need (for survival purposes) to shed their melanin and present as light-skinned as possible. Because society masculinizes women of color, specifically brown and black women, they must pursue femininity more extremely because of their skin color. If not, they are ridiculed and solidify their low position on the social ladder. Because of this they feel a greater emphasis to conform to the ideals of western femininity, which encompasses the prerequisite of smallness. In doing so, they may often feel at odds with connecting to the traditional cultural foods they grew up with and abiding by the rules of the society in which they reside.  

Imperialism’s production of the beauty standard—the necessity of thinness and whiteness—for women and girls in places like India portrays this phenomenon at work. The colonial impact left by Persia and Britain in South Asia has ingrained ideologies about correct body shape, colorism, and anti-blackness.

Image Description: Pictured is a scene from the era of British rule in India. Depicted are British soldiers, dressed in red and white garments, invading an Indian palace. The soldiers hold rifles and clouds of smoke surround them.  

Since the reign of the Mughals and later the British East India Company, Indian culture has been defined by the idea that the highest cultural capital^** is awarded to those of lighter skin and less weight. Because conforming more to this ideal cultural behavior meant increasing one’s socio-economic status, adhering to the beauty standard was a matter of SURVIVAL. It meant that the closer you were to being this standard the better you would be treated by the foreigners who had come to rule your land and who controlled economic and social production within it.

Image Description: Pictured is an infographic made up of a light tan background created by Taylor Wolfram. It says “6 Ways to Be a Fat Ally”. And lists “ treat fat people with respect and dignity, call out fatphobia when you hear it and see it, seek out fat stories from fat people, believe fat people, ask restaurants, bars, special event venues, etc, to provide size-inclusive seating options, take fat friends and family to fat-accessible spaces”. 

So with these foundational elements of diet culture’s impact in mind, we can then ask ourselves:

I know what you’re thinking: these tips are much easier said than done. And you are correct! But, this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t hold ourselves accountable when we say or think about bodies negatively. It also means that if you are being degraded for your appearance: STAND UP FOR YOURSELF! Real change can only be possible when we—women of color—learn that we are worthy of taking up space in this world. 

Footnotes

* The act of alienating something by highlighting its “abnormal” characteristics

** The amount of societal status one is given based on various factors (i.e., education, skills, wealth, and discussed the most in this case appearance) 

Resources and recommendations you should be sure to check out: 

Image description: shows student, Jane, smiling in front of a UMBC building

Positionality Statement: This post is written by Jane DeHitta, an adult learner in her final year at UMBC, who works as a student staff and social work intern at the Women’s Center. I am a first generation Filipino-American student who seeks to be self-aware of the power dynamics that take place in the intersections of our identities and strives to be intentional in the ways I speak to and encounter others. In this post, I share my experience of microaggressions against race and discuss a connection between microaggressions of different forms and the impact that can have on the individual. My experience is my own and I use it as a point of reference and not to represent the innumerable diversity of people’s experience with microaggressions. I hope that what I share in this post gives validation to those who have had experiences similar to my own, and to give a moment for thought and self-reflection for those who find themselves as the microaggressor.

Image description: a cartoon gif of two hands holding up a dark blue sign with the words “Words have power” written across it. The word “power” has an animated line being crossed underneath it for emphasis.

“I wonder who is more Asian?” my white female friend said in passing. She and I had been discussing movies we recently watched, among them Crazy Rich Asians and Always Be My Maybe, movies that feature a predominantly Asian cast. My friend had lived for several years in China and even spoke Cantonese and Mandarin, she had the privilege of experiencing much of Chinese culture. I, on the other hand, grew up in Maryland my whole life and have never been back to my parents home country of the Philippines, nor was I taught how to speak their native languages of Tagalog or Cebuano beyond a few conversational words. 

Taken aback by my friend’s question, I scoffed and went along with what I assumed was a joke by saying, “between you and me?”

She laughed, “yeah.” 

I felt uncomfortable but uncertain why or how to express it so I half-heartedly laughed back and said in an exaggeratedly teasing tone, “don’t make me prove my asianness to you!” We continued our conversation for a few minutes more before parting ways, but that discomfort lingered as a knot in my stomach. 

Prior to this recent encounter, I know that I have experienced microaggressions throughout my life, from friends saying, “oh, sometimes I forget your Asian!”  to strangers asking me “Where were you born? (Maryland) No, but where are you really from?” But because of my introverted personality and the culture of passivity I grew up in, I learned to respond much like the way I responded to my friend. Ignoring it or laughing it off. I wouldn’t confront the perpetrator or call them out, because it was easier that way, I could deal with my discomfort later. And afterwards I would go through a dialogue in my head that looks something like this, “they didn’t mean it like that. I shouldn’t be offended! They were just kidding! I’m not actually hurt by what they said. It’s fine. It’s not a big deal. Even if I was hurt or bothered, I’ve already laughed and moved on, and so have they. They don’t always say/do things like that.  Dwelling on it isn’t going to help. I don’t want to make them uncomfortable or feel bad.” I also struggle with invalidating my own experiences simply because “others have it worse”.

Infographic shows a breakdown of the impacts of microaggressions; key words: Imposter Syndrome, Stereotype Threat, other bad feelings like poor self-confidence, depression, etc. Link for more information

Growing up in Maryland for the entirety of my 26 years of life, I have had conflicting feelings about my Filipino/Asian identity. My parents did their best to share their culture, through cooking, traditions, and stories; every summer we went to the local Filipino festivals, and were a part of various Filipino groups. I loved going to these places, tasting the food, seeing the traditional clothing, and watching the dances–one of the years, my sisters and I even participated in the procession for Filipino princesses. And there were moments at these events as we would walk through the stalls as a family, when vendors would greet us, striking up a conversation with my parents in Tagalog or Cebuano. While they talked, I would just stand there awkwardly, nodding and smiling, though I didn’t know what was being said. Then they would turn to me and ask me something, and my mom would translate to me so I could answer. The shopkeepers would give a look of disappointment, “Oh you don’t speak Tagalog…?” It was in those moments, I remember this feeling, almost like imposter syndrome, that I’ve blown my cover, that if someone tried to talk to me they would realize I’m not actually Filipino and I didn’t belong.

A microaggression is “a statement, action, or incident regarded as an instance of indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group such as a racial or ethnic minority.” These can be subtle and are often considered harmless by the deliverer, but can have a huge impact on the individual. 

This infographic describes how to be an active bystander and address microaggressions. Key words: Observe, Think, Feel, Desire. Link for more information

Once my friend left me to ponder the authenticity of my racial and ethnic identities, I was able to take some time to reflect and navigate through my feelings. I asked myself, what about that question has continued to bother me? I was able to confide in my siblings, and as I processed through the experience with them I realized that the question I felt was lying underneath my friend’s words was this accusation of  “are you really Asian if…?” …you haven’t been to the country of origin, if you don’t speak the language, if…

I felt this question cutting at the ties of my belonging and identity. And I broke down crying.. 

Fortunately, my siblings were quick to support and affirm my feelings of confusion and hurt, as well as, comforting me with a list of  reasons of “you’re so Asian you…” (always tap the bags of rice at the grocery store; have a blue sash in Kung Fu; know how to pronounce adobo…etc) It’s funny, I laughed, and also I realized how ridiculous it was to even have a list of these qualifiers. 

Image description: an Asian woman making a “check mark” gesture with her finger saying “okay check!”

Being Asian or belonging to any racial or ethnic minority cannot be qualified and boiled down to a few checkboxes. It’s the different and unique combination of an individual’s upbringing, family history, ancestry, shared culture, passing on of traditions, and along with that, their experience of the intersectionality of their identities of race and ethnicity with gender, religion, sexual orientation, ability/disability, socio-economic status, etc.

The next day, I ran into this same friend and we made small talk. I was about to walk away when in my head I thought, “now is as good a time as any.” I asked if she had a moment to talk about our conversation from the other day and was able to express how what she said had made me uncomfortable. However, I was so concerned about her feelings that I kept downplaying my hurt and focused more on reassuring her “I know that wasn’t what you intended, or what you meant, and you’re not responsible for how I feel or react, but you are responsible for the things you say.” She apologized and shared that she was probably coming from a place of insecurity as well because she sometimes doesn’t feel connected with either her Asian connections and her White-American identity. This is not an uncommon experience, oftentimes when women of color are talking to a white woman to call them on, the conversation moves quickly from impact on the person of color to the guilt the white person feels for having made that impact. Their whiteness becomes centered. I listened and nodded and reassured her. And then I said we were fine and we ended the conversation.

The peace and resolution I felt after that encounter did not last. I found myself avoiding spaces I knew she would be in and feeling unsure of myself because I had already said we were fine, and I didn’t know how to communicate that I was, in fact, not. 

I ended up texting my friend and setting a boundary, “Hi, I know we had our conversation but I realize I’m still uncomfortable and I need space. That might look like I’m giving you the silent treatment, but I’m just trying to process.” 

She responded, “Thank you for letting me know. I have been thinking about our conversation too. If and when you would like to talk together again or process together I am open to that. I am very sorry for hurting you so deeply.” 

After taking a few days, and talking it through with my siblings, I made a plan for having a follow-up to the follow-up conversation with this friend. My sister suggested I write down the things I wanted to be able to say and to think of the reason or goal behind having this conversation:

The point of this conversation is to: 

1. Express how our second conversation made me feel unheard because it became centered on you
2. Be able to freely and authentically express how I feel without interruption or downplaying the impact of your words

Things I wanted to say:

1. It’s important to have this conversation because my feelings are valid and important and matter
2. I was hurt because it felt like you were asking me to prove my asianness and it hurt to think of the fact that my parents didn’t have the money to send me or my siblings back to the Philippines to visit or that there was an assumption that my parents didn’t care enough to teach me their language 
3. I think it would’ve been offensive even if you were Asian to say that, but it was more so because you are white and in that sentence you assumed my experience was similar to yours, when your lived experience is fundamentally different simply because you are white. Like when the rise in Asian hate crimes happened, you didn’t have to question how that would affect your behavior or safety.

To be clear, I share this not to villainize my friend. To her credit, she was able to have that conversation with me and give me the space I needed to process with her in that final dialogue without coming to her own defense and explaining where she was coming from. She listened to how her words had affected me, gave a sincere apology, and acknowledged that the excuse of “I wasn’t thinking” was lacking. To that end, I share this to make room for self-reflection for all of us, myself included, “have I said or done things that would be considered microaggressions to others? How have I used language that excludes others from feeling like they belong? Have I, at times, done more to defend myself than to listen to the impact of my actions or words?” 

“So maybe another question to ask is, how can I let this person share their experience with me before I assume what their experience has been…?”

These questions are things I have been asking myself.

As The Women’s Center continues their year-long conversation on Disability Justice + Access, I want to pose these questions specifically towards disability, both visible and especially invisible disabilities

Microaggressions can take a number of forms against those with disabilities. As I was reading I was struck by how subtle these can be and how harmful they are to the individual. Becoming aware of them and naming them can help prevent us from making the same hurtful mistakes in how we interact with those in the disabled community. 

My experience with having my own racial identity questioned closely resembles the invalidation that people with disabilities often face from those who question whether or not they are actually disabled or disabled enough. 

For instance, in this article I read, for those with invisible disabilities who drove, parking in handicapped spots often engendered glares, questions, or negative comments. A woman with a hidden disability stated, “Sometimes I get out of the car and I’m like, ‘Oh, who’s around, like do I need to take out the wheelchair for show?” (Olkin, 2019)

These microaggressions, among other things, can be felt as an attack against belonging and identity. As a non-disabled person, I cannot speak to what these experiences are like, and I don’t want to sit here comparing microaggressions like some sort of oppression olympics; what I want to do is be thoughtful about the ways I encounter those with disabilities (and to be considerate with meeting people in general because you never know what someone might be struggling with). So maybe another question to ask is, how can I let this person share their experience with me before I assume what their experience has been…?

In the last two years, I have been working on finding my voice and learning how to express my needs and feelings. This instance that I’ve shared was the first time that I really addressed a microaggression directed at me. And as I shared, it was not a straight-forward or easy path. I questioned how I was feeling and whether it was worth speaking up. I had to have the conversation a couple of times and sought out support from those who know and love me to help me organize my thoughts. 

Image description: An Asian woman saying with a determined expression, “We do speak up now. We do have a voice.”

As I’ve been educating myself more on social identities, I am learning how I can advocate for myself and on behalf of others. 

I’m challenging myself to 1) be brave in holding these conversations when someone says something that makes me uncomfortable and 2) be humble and self-reflective if and when someone calls me out or calls me in for something I have said. Making an authentic apology without excuses can be healing for both persons involved.

I encourage you to join me. Together, we can be the change we want to see in the world (too cheesy with the Ghandi line? I think not!).

Image description: A scene from Always Be My Maybe, in which the Asian female lead, Ali Wong points to the camera and smiles affectionately.

Recommendations and Resources: 

 I quoted this article when talking about microaggressions against disabilities: The Experiences of Microaggressions against Women with Visible and Invisible Disabilities. Olkin, R., Hayward, H., Abbene, M. S., & VanHeel, G. (2019). Journal of Social Issues, 75(3), 757–785. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12342

How Microagressions are like Mosquito Bites

A Guide to Responding to Microaggressions 

University of Washington made these infographicson microaggressions that can be helpful 

Office of Equity and Inclusion also helps with civil rights issues including discrimination, harassment, hate and bias

Content Note: This post is written by Sara Stewart, a sophomore and student staff member at the Women’s Center.  I am a non-disabled student, who, in my reading, work with CSJ, and personal reflection, hopes to be a better ally to my disabled family members, friends, and community members.  I wish to recognize where social and institutional practices reinforce ableism, and work to dismantle that. I hope what I share in this post is thought-provoking, and helps others find opportunities to work on ways to improve online accessibility.

October is in full swing, and the Women’s Center kicked off our 2021-2022 Critical Social Justice Initiative: Disability Justice and Access Matters with our first event, CSJ 101: Disability Justice at UMBC + Beyond.  While participants discussed accessibility and the history and principles of the disability justice movement on and off-campus, there were also conversations on how the pandemic forced UMBC, other colleges, schools, and many workplaces to adapt to remote work and learning.  Among other things, the flexible hours and ability to work and learn from home are options that disabled people have advocated for years.  We must raise the question: What does it mean that it took a global emergency to push accessibility to the forefront of our minds?

With this foundational question, we need to consider the ways we can continue to practice and expand our values of accessibility and inclusivity online.  In particular, as acts of oppression and anti-Black violence have been public and widely discussed in online spaces during the pandemic, much of our storytelling, learning, and growth from one another has become more prominent online, especially on social media sites like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.  This demands that we work together to make social media spaces accessible for all.

Many disability activists and users have long been discussing disability justice on these platforms, sometimes at the risk of being shadow banned: unknowingly having their content hidden from followers and other users.  A simple way to be good allies and challenge this online erasure is to reflect on the online learning we choose to engage in and our current accessibility practices, while recognizing where we can hear feedback, grow, and change.  Disability justice must exist in all spaces where we are coming together to share knowledge, stories, and cultivate a sense of solidarity.  

In my research to improve social media accessibility at the Women’s Center, I’ve focused on image descriptions, alt-text, video captioning, and transcriptions.  One of the first pieces I read to get a sense of the issue was this article: ‘May be an image’: what it’s like browsing instagram while blind.’  However, I had trouble picturing and fully understanding the mechanics of a screen reader, so I decided to try it myself by switching on VoiceOver in my phone settings and browsing Instagram.  It was nowhere near the same experience, since I’m not visually impaired, but it quickly became clear why not including alt text or image descriptions in a post would become a problem.  The screen reader would offer a variety of descriptions of a post’s content, ranging from: “Photo” or “Image” without any more information, or it would guess, “May be an image of: an animal” when describing a Halloween post of a kitten sitting in a Jack-O’-Lantern.  As the article discusses, the accuracy of the screen reader was a complete hit or miss without the help of image descriptions or alt text, and people who need this technology would miss out on a lot of content online.

Even though these features may be new to some people, especially to those who are non-disabled, we must do the work together to make the spaces we create online inclusive and accessible.  To that end, I’ve put together an easy resource guide of some social media accessibility practices, however, this is not an exhaustive list.  Compiled at the end of this blog post is a list of resources and advocates that assisted me in this research, and are also good places to consult for yourself!

Image Descriptions and Alt Text

Both image descriptions and alt text are used to describe an image or video being shared online, however, they can be displayed differently.  These features are useful for a variety of reasons, for those with limited vision, language-learners, to transcribe difficult fonts, and so much more.  

Usually, alt text is not visually displayed, as it primarily refers to the text added to the alt attribute within an image.  In other words, alt text is embedded within an image for accessibility purposes and to be shown in the place of an image if it can’t load.  Since screen readers can’t “read” an image, they read the alt text instead, passing on the information either through a Braille display or by reading it out in a synthetic voice.  On platforms like Instagram and Twitter, alt text can be manually entered by selecting “advanced settings” and “+ALT” when sharing content online.  When writing alt text, there are a few things you should keep in mind.  There are usually character limits, so try to be short and concise!  Consider the context, content, and function of the image and give a very brief description. 

On the other hand, image descriptions can be lengthier and more detailed.  They can be included in the main caption of a post or in a reply to the original content.  When writing image descriptions, think about the reason for sharing an image and the information or message to be conveyed.  If the image is a graphic, make sure to transcribe the text.  If you’re sharing a picture of your funny dog, take some liberties in describing its goofy expression!  You know your audience and their needs best, and the right tone to use when sharing information.  Alex Chen, a product designer and writer in Chicago, recommends using a framework of object, action, and context in an attempt to stay concise while also communicating the full intent of the image.  In this model, the object would be the main focus or subject of an image, the action would be what the object is doing or what is happening to it, while the context describes the surrounding environment and purpose.  While these are only a few helpful pointers, image descriptions will naturally take a bit of practice and getting used to.  Don’t be discouraged!

Video Captions and Video Transcriptions 

So what about live video?  Well, video captions divide speech transcripts using caption frames that are synchronized with the audio.  These identify speakers and depict all speech and sound effects, including relevant sounds and inflections.  Captions or sticker captions can be added on pre-recorded videos on some platforms such as Instagram and TikTok.  Where live-streaming is possible, live captioning is typically available online with some paid services like 3playmedia.  Otherwise, on Instagram specifically, auto-generated captions can be included when posting the saved video.

On the other hand, video transcriptions convert all spoken audio and information, including on-screen text and key visual information, into written textual descriptions.  The main difference is that transcriptions are separate texts that aren’t synced to any audio, and can be either verbatim or clean read, the latter of which uses light edits to allow for readability.  

Both captions and transcriptions are great to use when sharing video content online, and when used in conjunction with image descriptions in alt text, increase the accessibility of social media. 

Other Good Practices 

• When writing hashtags, use camel case: #CaptionLikeThis #notlikethis
• Place mentions and hashtags at the end of the post
• Use emojis sparingly, since each one is read out by screen readers
• Include trigger warnings and/or content warnings when sharing material that may include sensitive content for some people.  Posting these warnings also empowers people to choose what they want to interact with online, or not
• It can be challenging to differentiate between low-contrast colors, so use an online high contrast color checker, such as this one by Coolors, to ensure your image is readable
• In text-based images, use one or two easy-to-read fonts, like Serif or Arial, with large text and ample spacing

Give Credit Where Credit Is Due!

When engaging with and sharing disability activists’ content online, give credit where it’s due!  Follow, uplift, and take the time to reflect on what is being shared.  When possible, support activists directly by financial means!  Part of doing this learning is giving recognition to the people who have been taking the time to do the work of teaching disability justice.  Giving credit and offering meaningful engagement are actions that can be so simple, and that go a long way in empowering others.      

Just do it!

While I’m just beginning to explore the ways I can make my online spaces more accessible, there’s still so much more for me to consider.  People have advocated for baseline accessibility for a long time, so we must continue to address this and adapt to the needs of those around us.  I invite readers to join me on this journey!  What suggestions do you have to make social media more accessible?  If these are new concepts for you, what’s one takeaway you’ll consider incorporating into your own practices?  Feel free to share below in the comments or message on our social media! 

We invite you to learn more about this year’s Critical Social Justice Initiative!  Our next event, Crip Camp: Screening and Discussion will take place online on October 27th, from 3-6pm.  If you would like to be involved in our upcoming events, subscribe to this WordPress and follow us on myUMBC.

Further Resources

• “May be an image;” what it’s like browsing Instagram while blind
• Is Your Social Media Accessible to Everyone? These 9 Best Practices Can Help 
• Closed Captioning vs. Live Transcription: What’s the Difference? 
• Transcription vs. Captioning – What’s the Difference? 
• How to write an image description (Alex Chen) 
• AccessThat: Digital Accessibility Basics 
• Disability Intersectionality Summit: Places to Start 
• Access Is Love Reading List 
• Alt Text as Poetry  
• Shadowbanning is a Thing — and It’s Hurting Trans and Disabled Advocates 
• Instagrams
  • @higher_priestess
  • @annieelainey
  • @accessbitch
  • @access_guide_
  • @thedisabledhippie

Autumn Cook (they/them) is a senior dual degree recipient in Chemistry and Gender, Women’s, + Sexuality Studies. They are a member of the Women’s Center staff team and co-facilitate the Spectrum discussion group which is a space for trans and non-binary community members.

We are in the midst of one of the most ruthless and successful pushes to limit transgender people from participating within everyday society. At the time of publishing, 7 states (Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Idaho, South Dakota, Mississippi, and West Virginia) currently have laws on the books that prohibit transgender youth from participating in gender-segregated sports. That is, transgender girls are not allowed to play girls sports under penalty of the law. Twenty-five more states have either proposed bills or have bills waiting to be voted on within their state legislatures that do the same thing. A similar measure failed within the United States Senate on a razor-thin 49-50 margin.

These bills are extremely frightening and damaging not only to transgender youth but to the transgender population as a whole, and the entire activist population cannot just watch the rights of marginalized people be eroded. I am a transgender athlete, and although I am not of the age where many of these bills apply me, I used to be a transgender kid who would have been affected by these laws.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve really liked participating in sports even though I was usually pretty bad at them. I played recreational soccer throughout elementary school and exceptionally enjoyed it. In middle school though, I discovered Ultimate, more commonly known as Ultimate Frisbee (Frisbee is actually a trademark, and therefore only can be used to describe discs made by Wham-O), and was almost immediately in love. But I didn’t consider myself an Ultimate player until my freshman year of college when I participated in UMBC’s annual hat tournament.

Image Description: 17 members of the 2019-2020 UMBC Women’s Ultimate team, standing in two rows within their blue and yellow jerseys.

Ultimate is a team sport that consists of two teams of seven players trying to get a disc down the field to the other team’s endzone. It’s not as easy as just running the disc to the endzone and passing it when you get blocked; a player who has the disc cannot move and must pass the disc to their teammates to advance it down the field. Uniquely, Ultimate is a non-contact sport that is refereed by the players themselves: there are no officials on the field. This forces an open dialogue between the players of the two opposing teams and fosters mutual respect from a collective love of playing the game.

When I showed up to the hat tournament on the fields near the Event Center, I was a fresh face and I didn’t know anyone or what to expect from this entirely new group of people I almost felt I was infiltrating. I thought a lot about my transness in relation to everyone else’s cisness, but no one asked and just took me at my word that I was a woman. I was hesitant at first, thinking they might confront me, but then in the second game of the day, I subbed in and almost immediately I saw an opening. I was being poached, or my defender was electing to cover the space where they thought I would run to get the disc rather than covering me directly. I saw this and immediately booked it for the endzone.The person in control of the disc saw this and by the time my defender reacted, I was already halfway down the field. Before I knew it, the disc was flying overhead and I wasn’t going to be fast enough to catch it. So I did the only other thing you can do in this situation… layout!

Image description: A GIF of Professional Ultimate Player Ashleigh Buch running and diving for (laying out) for a disc thrown into the end-zone.

While I adore the adrenaline rush that you receive after being a part of a big play, I think what kept me coming back to Ultimate was the mutual respect that players had for each other and the community surrounding Ultimate. Ultimate players are not in it for fame or the money, because there really isn’t any, but instead, push their bodies to the limit because they truly adore the game and adore the people that they have met through it. They didn’t care that I was trans; Ultimate players just care about your love of the game.

Unfortunately, one part of Ultimate is that the vast majority of organized play at the college level is gendered, as in there is a men’s league and a women’s league, so it can be a bit awkward when you come out as a trans person. Although there is a mixed league where men and women play alongside each other, I was very lucky in this sense because by the time I was playing competitive Ultimate in college, I had fully transitioned and had been on hormones for years. At the time I started playing, there were restrictions about who could play in the women’s league, but fortunately, I was within the restrictions and could play. 

Luckily, thanks to the tireless activism from Ultimate players, USA Ultimate (USAU), recently amended the guidelines that dictate who can play in the Women’s and Men’s leagues and no longer requires “transfeminine people to be on testosterone suppressants for a year before they become eligible” and also allows transmasculine people to still play in the “women’s” league, regardless of if they are taking testosterone or not. This is a fantastic demonstration of the Ultimate community’s commitment to inclusivity and equity.

However, the USAU organization is a relatively small organization that organizes a relatively small collegiate sporting league. The NCAA, the preeminent collegiate sports organization within the US for major sports such as basketball, swim/dive, soccer, golf, volleyball etc, requires that transfeminine athletes who wish to compete within women’s sports be on hormone replacement therapy that blocks testosterone for at least one year, and for any testosterone taking transmasculine people to be immediately disqualified from the women’s divisions. This policy is quite similar to the established policies that the Olympics and other professional sporting bodies have used for years. The one year mark on testosterone blocking is almost completely arbitrary, as many transgender people’s hormones are stable long before the year mark. 

Transgender people being able to participate in gendered sports is not a new thing, but in the last year, the fervor around “transgender people taking over gendered sports” reached new highs so I wanted to add to the conversation by describing what it’s like being a transgender woman who participates in a woman’s sport. I am coming from a position of privilege because I never had to fight with the organizing bodies over my eligibility to play, and the sport that I play is inclusive and accepting of transgender bodies and identities; that doesn’t change the effect of the greater societal belief that transgender people somehow have an advantage in sports so my experiences will not be the same as other athletes or trans people who play different sports.

Whenever I step onto the field of a sanctioned tournament, or even if I’m just playing with people I haven’t played with before, I get really scared that someone is going to confront me about my gender identity, claiming that I should not be there, or that I have a competitive advantage, or that my presence is making the other players feel uncomfortable. I fear that someone is going to clock my gender identity just by the way that I sound or the shame on my shoulders. It has never actually happened before on the field, but that does not make the fear go away. Similar to what I discussed within my first blog post, the fear that I am invading a women’s space with my masculinized childhood experience haunts me. I’m an aggressive player, meaning that I go after discs hard and make my presence on the field known, and I’m always fearful that someone will read that as me being a man playing a women’s sport and be called out on it. Just the fear of theoretically being called out for not belonging within a space that I know that I belong in is really hard to grapple with and process, especially when I’m trying to devote all of my brainpower to doing the best I can on the field. 

Everyone who wants to participate in sports should be able to participate in sports.

Some of these fears come from the common tropes that parts of society hold surrounding how trans people operate within the world. One of the biggest fears that I have when playing women’s frisbee is getting called out on somehow having an advantage over the cis women. Lawmakers cite that these bills are to protect the “competitive integrity” of sports because they believe that transgender people will take over the top echelons of scholastic sports if they were allowed to compete. The idea that transgender people have an advantage over their cisgender counterparts is bogus fear-mongering about transgender people. Data actually suggests that trans women are less effective than their cisgender peers. For instance, one study showed trans women on hormone replacement therapy run 10% slower when compared to their results pre-HRT. Additionally, a United States Air Force study demonstrated that after a year on HRT, transgender and cisgender service members’ fitness metrics were nearly the same. 

To further demonstrate this false idea of “transgender advantage,” let’s also take a look at the history. Transgender athletes have been allowed to participate in competitive sports for years now, and only one openly transgender man, Chris Mosier, has qualified and joined a U.S. national team and only one transgender woman, Dr. Veronica Ivy, has won an international championship title, with Dr. Ivy havving won the UCI Women’s Masters Track Cycling World Championship for the women’s 35-44 bracket. That’s two people–and I don’t think they’re looking to take over the world of sports anytime soon.

Another aspect I want to challenge about these anti-trans laws is the question of who is actually impacted by them. Yes, trans athletes and trans students are obviously the most affected by these laws, but they are not the only people impacted by these laws! Every athlete, cisgender or transgender, are affected by these laws. This is directly seen within the text of Florida’s recent attempt at banning transgender kids from participating in sports, a bill that is currently predicted to die in the Florida State Senate, but passed the House. According to the Tampa Bay Times, if passed, this bill would allow people to challenge any athlete’s gender, forcing them to prove their “sex” one of three ways: “with a DNA test; with a testosterone test, or with [a] medical professional examining the student’s ‘reproductive anatomy.’” This problem is not just hypothetical. In 2017, an 8 year old girl and her team were disqualified from a girls club soccer tournament for looking too much like a boy with her short haircut. Tournament officials later said that this disqualification was because of a typo, an excuse that the family of the girl did not buy. 

The reality is that these bills hurt everyone.

Just as bills banning the use of public bathrooms hurt cisgender people who do not fit into the heteronormative and hegemonic ideas of what a “woman” or a “man” should look like, these anti-sports bans will hurt more than just transgender people. Any non-normative looking athlete is a target of these bills. 

Another interesting aspect of this debate is that sports are, by definition, a competition to determine who is better at some activity. In professional volleyball, do we require taller players to jump lower or to play on their knees to be fairer to the shorter players? Do we ask runners with a larger stride to limit themselves to make it fairer for the shorter-legged players? Of course, we don’t, because sports are a measure of people’s natural and trained abilities!

Society would never ask a cisgender person to limit themselves to make it fairer for another cisgender person so why is there a double standard for trans people? Some transgender athletes have different body types than their cisgender counterparts. A transgender woman who went through a male natal puberty might have broader shoulders, be taller, or have a longer stride. But even if these differences in body type did infer an advantage to transgender athletes over their cisgender peers, (which they don’t), it would not make sense to penalize them for being better at something than their competitors, because society does not punish cisgender athletes for their innate abilities.

Ultimately, the ability to participate in sports is a human right. Everyone who wants to participate in sports should be able to participate in sports. My message to everyone who thinks that transgender people should not be allowed to play sports is pretty simple: let me play the game that I love.

 Image Description: A professional Ultimate player playing out for a disc in a spectacular fashion.