I know I had already touched upon it, but now that school’s out and all my pictures are uploaded, I wanted to mention more about Clark’s Trans Day of Remembrance this year. One of OPEN’s main goals next semester will be making the campus more Trans-friendly and aiding legislation meant to help Transgender individuals, so I thought it might be helpful for myself as well to recap. It was a multi-faceted event, and we had a vigil, signs, tabling, and a push to make more of our restrooms gender neutral.

I had hardly realized the vigil was happening until it was over. Being the busy-body I am, I had been too worried about its production than actually experiencing it. After everyone had gotten their tea lights, we stood around in a circle and read off stories of Trans victims. I was counting to see how many we had gone through so I’d know when to make the closing remarks (thinking: “Five? Yes, I think that was the fifth. Seven more? Wait, was that sixth? Oh no…”), when I heard a few sniffles. It was frigid out; my nose was running too. “Okay, twelfth. That’s the last one. No, actually one more. Alright.” And then it hit me. There were sixty people crowded around a circle, and they hadn’t all just come down with colds. Nope, people were crying; people were genuinely moved. And that’s when those sniffles hit me too, and we concluded the vigil.

All day we had tabled with ribbons and fact sheets, as well as quilt squares for people to decorate. We collected around 120 squares, and the VP Steph—being the wonderful person she is—agreed to sew it up over break. I’ll be posting images when she’s done!

We were able to get a few more gender neutral bathrooms in the University Center, and posted signs on all the campus restrooms about Trans Day of Remembrance. I collected quite a few people’s thanks for the event, so it sounds like next semester’s exploits will also be well-received.

Here’s to the New Year. I’ll be sure to continue rattling feathers and rocking boats. :)