Transgender at Penn State?

Another month down — we are in the dead of winter here in the mountains, and we haven’t had a single snowstorm of note. We’ve had flurries, and some cold days, but nothing like we had when I was in undergrad. According to the Washington Post, State College is receiving 20 inches of snow less per year than it did in the ’00s.  Friday, it was 70 degrees in Antarctica. But global warming is a liberal hoax.

So that lack of winter means I could be out and about, engaging with the transgender community here in State College, right?

RIGHT?

Well, no. Setting aside the fact that I’ve only been downtown to the bars once since returning (and that was for my birthday in September,) I’ve found that, as far as I can tell, there is no transgender community here. Penn State’s undergraduate enrollment is 46,810 (according to the school,) which are 10,000 more than when I was a student. Current graduate school enrollment (again, according to the school) at University Park is 1938. A 2016 report from the Williams Institute at UCLA Law estimates the percentage of transgender people at 0.6%. By that reckoning, there are 281 (rounding up) transgender undergraduate students, and 12 (rounding up) transgender graduate students.

And in case you’re wondering, the World’s Largest Living Alumni Association is about 700,000 (again, PSU source) meaning that there are 4,200 transgender Penn State alumni.

Okay, I’m one. I know two other transgender graduate students — one male and one female. That’s three. I know of four transgender undergrads, one of whom, Samantha, I’m mentoring. I’ve met maybe twice that number of genderqueer undergrads.

Still, 293 transgender people are a good amount! We could have a big club! BUT. . . how many of them are out and expressing themselves? Aye, there’s the rub. So few.

PSU has a thriving Sexual and Gender Diversity Center (LBGTQ) center with great management and caring staff. I see many undergrads there every time I walk in. So that’s not the issue. So why not don’t more of these transgender college students come out?

Oh come on, you know the answer — FEAR. Fear of the parents, their peers. Fear that, when they graduate, no one will hire them because, well, “we decided to go in different direction,” or “the position is already filled,” or. . .fill in the blank. They don’t come out for the same reasons so many adult transgender people don’t dare come out — the ever-present fear of losing everything.

Let’s say that there WERE a club for transgender students, and it was well attended. I could easily attend myself, right? Share my decades of battle scarred wisdom with them. Laugh and delight in the company of people to whom I don’t have to explain myself — people who Understand.

No, I couldn’t. This PhD thing? It’s brutal. I mean, read 5-600 pages a week and write reports brutal. Then present cogently on that information in class in front of world renowned experts in the field who are judging your every word brutal. Okay, maybe not judging your every word, but they ARE listening, and imparting their knowledge.

I’ve been back at Penn State, my happy place, since August — six months. I’ve done the bar scene ONCE. I’ve been too damn busy (as well as too damn broke) to go downtown and indulge in some fun. I can also count the number of times I’ve visited my fraternity house on one hand as well — and one of those was homecoming. Part of the reason I don’t go to the bars, etc is. . .I just don’t want to go. The bar scene is full of people who are young enough to be my children. I would be that “creepy old person at the end of the bar” even if I weren’t trans.

Still, things are MUCH better for LGBT now than they were in the 1980s, when I was an undergrad. Back then, LGB people got their butts kicked. Transgender people? Non-existent. I cringe to think what would’ve happened if one were found out. It’s not that there weren’t any. I’ve since met a person from my era that is transgender, but hid as well as me.

Is there a transgender culture here at Penn State? I haven’t seen one, but then again, would I? I truly hope that there is one. In today’s political climate of institutionalized Hate against us, we need every little bit of help and comfort we can find.

We all do.

Be well.

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Category: Transgender Community News