The Gender and Sexuality Campus Center held a trans community day and film night to provide affirmation and community for transgender students in light of conservative commentator Matt Walsh’s event on campus the same day.
Hosted by Young America’s Foundation, Walsh held a presentation and Q&A after a screening of his documentary “What is a Woman?” which focuses on transgender and women’s issues, according to YAF.
In an email statement to The Badger Herald, GSCC director Warren Scherer said he hoped the trans community day would give transgender students a place to feel safe and welcome during Walsh’s presentation.
“Once we learned of the event, we recognized there was going to be a profound impact on trans and gender-expansive students as well as their support networks,” Scherer said in the email. “While anticipating the impact and the rippling effect of the exclusionary rhetoric are erasure, alienation, and isolation; I hoped the GSCC could offer programming that would counteract those goals; opportunities to be seen/visible while in community cultivating a sense of belonging would do some of that labor. A space to receive support, connection and encounter affirming narratives about Trans folks.”
The event included crafts, games, food, sharing spaces and screenings of films that highlight transgender issues, according to GSCC. The event ran from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Student Justice Hub and Marquee Cinema in Union South.
Scherer said he thinks it was important that the event was held on the same day as Walsh’s presentation, saying that the when and how for the event were anchored in affirmation.
“If the aim is to combat erasure, alienation, and isolation in this moment, we would like the affirmation to be concurrent or immediately after,” Scherer said in the email. “I think it aligns with bystander intervention strategies.”
The Madison community supported the transgender community in other ways as well, with many protesting outside of Memorial Union before Walsh was set to take the stage.
The GSCC is continuing to support transgender students, and will be hosting the Trans Research Symposium on Nov. 9 and their signature event “The Trans Monologues” Nov. 18, according to Scherer.
