In this episode of the Conversations for Change podcast, U-M graduate student and #UMSocial intern Josh Nichols talks to University of Michigan alumna Emily Kaufman about the significance of Transgender Awareness Week.

 

 

 

Josh: Thank you all so much for joining us on this is episode of Conversations for Change. Today we have a super special guest Emily Kaufman, who is an alumna of the university of Michigan. She’s with us today to talk about Transgender Awareness Week and the role that it’s played in her life as a trans woman. Emily, thank you so much for being here. And if you just want to quickly introduce yourself, we can get started right after.

 

Emily: Thank you so much for having me on. It’s really nice to be able to give back to the University of Michigan community that I was a part of. I’m a graduate from the class of 2018 in women’s studies. And I worked on Capitol Hill for a while as an intern and on a few political campaigns, Beto [O’Rourke] for Senate campaign in 2018 and [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren for president from December [2019] to March [2020]. So I’ve been pretty engaged in the political world since graduating. And now I am in the process of hearing back from law schools and I hope to start in a law school in next fall.

 

Josh: The first question that I wanted to ask is: If you could describe your experience at Michigan as a trans woman, what would you say?

 

Emily: So I’m old, I guess in a way. I came out in, depending how you count, at the end of 2014, beginning of 2015. So that was before Caitlyn Jenner came out. There were still people that didn’t even know what it was at Michigan. So it was a pretty isolating experience at first. There was only one other trans women I knew, my freshman year, which was difficult. She wasn’t on hormones yet or anything at that time. So, I was really the only person that was going through what I was going through, at that time. I lived in the gender inclusive housing. It was the second year that it was used, and despite that I was the only trans woman in that cohort of 12 people. Being one of two was very draining, difficult for me. I started doing public speaking in my women’s studies class, which I did for a couple of years. And other kinds of events to raise awareness about the trans community—what it means to be trans.

 

Progressively as the years went on, there were more trans women on campus, but I don’t think it hit the critical mass necessary to say that there was a community. I definitely think it’s something that needs to be improved, but my freshman year I was not allowed to use the women’s bathroom at East Quad where I lived, on the floor that I was on, because my ID still said male, and they didn’t want to have some parent firestorm and deal with it in the middle of the semester. So I was only allowed to use the gender-inclusive bathroom. And there was only two that were exclusive access. So I had to walk up and down the stairs trying to find a bathroom, because there was only four that I could use because I was not about to use the men’s bathroom looking how I did. So there’s lots of things that definitely changed. It was difficult to find support, but there was people within the LGBT community and allies that really helped me on the journey.

 

Emily Kaufman

Emily Kaufman

Josh: Thank you so much. It’s really good to hear your experience. And I know that we’ve been friends for quite some time, so it’s interesting to hear your perspective on things and things that as your friend, I didn’t even know that you have to go through. So I appreciate you sharing that. So the next question I wanted to ask: Were there any resources that you found helpful on campus and your time here?

 

Emily: One resource that I found really helpful was the Spectrum Center. I have a good relationship with the director. Well, Sherry, he actually wrote one of my letters of recommendation for law school. It was something that there was programs and events that they would put on, that I felt were very beneficial to me early on. I felt like some people in the social justice community didn’t really think of me as a person representing a minority community. I think a lot of people didn’t recognize trans/gay/queer, as a minority group that should be thought of as a minority group because we are an oppressed group that deals with discrimination. So that was definitely something that when I was doing activism, public speaking, and organizing on campus that I ran into. Beyond the resources at the Spectrum Center, which I did think were really helpful for me, but they can’t pull trans woman out of thin air.

 

I started LGBT+ Michigan, which not everyone listening might know, that I, a trans woman started LGBT+ Michigan because I didn’t see that community among LGBTQ people on campus while I was a freshman or sophomore. So I started this organization as a social/social justice organization to create connections and community among LGBTQ people at Michigan. I’m really proud that it’s still there. And most people in the group probably don’t know who I am since I graduated while ago, but a few of the upperclassmen will remember me. I was really proud of that. So there wasn’t a community there really, there were individual LGBTQ people I knew, but there wasn’t a cohesive group and I’m really happy and proud that I helped to create that when it didn’t exist.

 

Josh:  Thank you. I’m aware that you’re super active in social justice work and advocacy for the LGBTQ community. So are there any things that you wish people knew about being transgender? Any common misconceptions that you’d like to clear up?

 

Emily: One instance that really stood out to me was when I brought my friend, who is a trans speaker, to campus twice. I was putting up the flyers for the event and this guy’s like, “Oh, I can’t believe that’s a man.” So I have a low bar, girl let me tell you. I have a low expectation threshold for people because we’re a small minority group. When people mess up, I’m going to come at them. So he, by saying that’s a man, is just unbelievably disrespectful to me and to my friend and below the low threshold that I have for people knowledge about my community, right? Calling us the gender we are and not asking what our genitals are, is literally all I ask. Some people have a higher threshold than me, but for me, that’s it.

 

So when this kid was saying that she’s a man, that’s very dehumanizing of our existence. I think one thing that I actually wish a lot of people did, that people would engage more to talk about being trans, because there weren’t enough people on campus that were of a trans experience that I could talk to about it. So I wish that my cisgender friends were more open to engaging with me about it, when I would talk about it with them. I remember one time was talking about the trans experience in a women’s studies class and no one else added on. And so I just was like, okay, you guys know the basics. We can have a conversation about this. People were just so afraid of offending me that they didn’t want to say anything. So I think obviously be careful how you choose your words. You don’t want to offend someone, but that being said, I think that it’s nice to talk about it with people beyond the trans community.

 

I think there are a few other misconceptions that people have about the trans community specifically that there’s this moment where there’s an epiphany and you’re like, “Oh my God, I’m trans. All my years of wondering are answered.” That was somewhat true for me, but it’s more of a process where I wished I was trans or [felt] like, “I can’t do it, it’s 2012, this is not a thing that I could do.” But actually I came out to myself at the end of 2013 and it wasn’t until a year later that I came out on social media. So it’s a process and it takes time. I have had characteristics of a “trans childhood” being super femme, but not everyone does.

Everybody has a different backstory, different time, or way that they discovered their identity. And I think that that diversity is something that cis people should be more aware of and learn more about.

 

Josh: I think education is just so important and you being able to have these conversations and being open to them will really help people to understand your community better and just be more engaged in that community. So a question that I personally have, as a cisgender male, and I think maybe some of the listeners may have too is, what does it mean to be a good ally to a transgender person?

 

Emily: I think a lot of it is listening to a trans person, if you’re friends with one and being there for them because there are things they deal with that are just so different. As a woman, I deal with things that men don’t deal with. And as a white passing person, there are things with race that I don’t deal with. I think it’s important to listen to what trans people are experiencing and to be there for them emotionally. I also think that people should make an effort if they don’t know any trans people to try to go to events which trans speakers or something after COVID, and maybe in the meantime, watch YouTube videos or something, because there are a lot of misconceptions, like in the previous question, about trans people and who we are, and the best way to break those stereotypes is to meet an actual trans person.

 

So I think that making an effort to learn more about the community and being also intersectional, if you’re an organization that’s about your racial or ethnic identity or your religion, you could do some sort of intersectional activity with an LGBT organization to have mutual increased understanding and different identities at play. I think that’s something I’d like to see with cis people about the trans community, learning more about the trans community.

I think it’s important to listen to what trans people are experiencing and to be there for them emotionally.

Josh: Thank you, Emily. That’s so insightful and something that certainly challenges me to learn more, so I appreciate that a lot. What does Transgender Awareness Week mean to you as a trans woman?

 

Emily: Well, I guess you are going to quote me. I was going to say don’t quote me, but I don’t recall the Trans Awareness Week being a thing until maybe a couple of years ago. I vaguely remembered it was a thing this year, to be completely honest with you. The thing that I remember is Trans Day of Remembrance, which is November 20th. So that’s something that’s been I’ve known about for many years, but as far as Trans Awareness Week, I think it kind of grew from that. At least I didn’t really know about it initially, but I think it grew up out of having a week dedicated to the trans community with Trans Day of Remembrance being kind of the capstone of that trans educational week.

 

I think it’s important that there are times that trans people get center stage because a lot of times it’s a very negative stage that we get, with all the laws that have been passed over the years—the trans bathroom bills and the banning in the military. I think it’s good to have a week where trans excellence can be put on display that’s not necessarily negative at least for the first six days, I guess, of Trans Awareness Week. Obviously the Memorial Trans Day of Remembrance is a day that isn’t positive. It’s not fluffy and nice, but it’s also necessary to hear the names of the people who’ve been killed because our community does face violence.

 

But that being said, it’s nice to have a few days before that, to just think about the positive things that are going on in the trans community. And this year, I included my story, to an extent, by posting the transformation pic that people love to see—the before and after. They eat it up on social media. While I’ve been in sort of a stagnant stage of my career having been unemployed since the end of March, I think that for a lot of people, I was the first trans person they met. I’ve mentored, probably in the hundreds at this point, trans people online and in person and despite being 24. I don’t think I can say I’m a trans elder, but I’m getting there because of all the people for the many years that I’ve been engaged in my community. So I think that it’s a time where I can reflect on how I’ve made a positive impact on my community.

 

Josh: I love that. I’m sure your experiences have not only been impactful to the people that you’ve helped other members of your community, but educating and continuing to spread the message of awareness and acceptance of the community, to people who aren’t part of that, is equally as important. So thank you for sharing that. And the last question that I’ll ask is, do you have anything you’d like to say to students struggling with understanding their identity?

 

Emily: So there’s been a few people over the years that have come to me, who have questioned their identity, being trans or non-binary, who I didn’t really expect would be people that would come to me. But it’s a process, it’s a journey. It takes time and self-reflection, and the answer might be that you don’t know, and that’s okay, that you’re still discovering that identity. It’s like I said, it took me years I suppose, to come to terms with it. I mean, the first time I heard about what transgender, transsexual was, would have been 2008-ish. So it took me five or six years before I even came to terms with myself about who I was. So it takes time, but it also helps to talk to people who are trans to learn more about how transitioning affected their lives.

 

Also the Spectrum Center has resources for people, but something that was really helpful for me was imagining who I will be in 10 years, not where I will be, but who will I be? I could not imagine 10 years when I initially thought of this. So I would have been 17 at the time, and I couldn’t imagine being 27 and being a man. Not being able to even envision that as a reality for me, was the sort of straw that broke the camel’s back in realizing that I am a woman. That for me was something that was really helpful in my journey, but also experimenting with femininity or masculinity and presenting in different ways is also something that people can do. But know that you’ll figure it out, whatever the answer is, and that there’ll be resources and people who will accept you no matter what.

 

Josh: Amazing. Well, that wraps up all the questions I had. Again, I just want to thank you so much for your time. I have learned a lot. I have grown personally, so I’m sure everyone listening has as well. And thank you again, Emily for your time. I appreciate it.

 

Emily: Yes. Thank you so much for having me.