This past week, November 18th – 21st, Haverford’s GRASE (Gender Resources and Sexuality Equity) Center celebrated Trans Week of Joy, Resistance, and Power with a series of community events.
The week kicked off on Monday with the opening of the GRASE Center Library. Ingrid Layman ’27, the GRASE Center’s Library Associate, explained that the GRASE Library is mostly comprised of the collection from the Haverford Women’s Center—what the GRASE Center was called until it was renamed in 2020 to reflect it’s change in mission to include work on sexual orientation, gender identities, and advocacy for LGBTQIA+ individuals, women, and femme communities. Haverford admitted its first class of women in the fall of 1980. The Women’s Center was established in 1981 and became operational in the spring of 1982. Layman pointed to a pamphlet titled “Campus Sexual Assault,” saying “We’ve got a whole bunch of pamphlets and programming that they did. It seemed like it was just a really present, important space on campus, and that was really the vision for GRASE, as well.” Layman went on to describe how, in light of the expansion, it was important to update the library to include “queer and gender non-conforming voices on the shelves”. On the importance of having a queer library on campus, Layman said “I think doing research can be uncomfortable, and I think doing research can be really personal, and I don’t think it always has to be academic. Seeing yourselves on the shelves can be really important in figuring out who you are and how you want to be and the way you want to live, and so I think that having a space that is unassuming and welcoming and really inviting is really important.” Layman and GRASE Center Director kt Tedesco shared that any students interested in checking out books from GRASE’s collection can visit the Center in Stokes 119 between 7 a.m.-12 a.m. and set up an account on their computer.
On Tuesday, CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services) hosted a conversation space for trans and gender non-conforming (GNC) students to “be in community with one another [and] be supported” in the GRASE Center from 4 p.m.-5 p.m.
On Wednesday, which was National Transgender Day of Remembrance—a day dedicated to honoring the lives that have been lost to anti-transgender violence—the GRASE Center held a candle-lit memorial “to honor the Trans & GNC folx killed in 2024”. They provided extra candles “for any student who would like to light one for a trans loved one.” The murder rates of transgender individuals in the United States nearly doubled between 2017 and 2021, and at least 30 transgender and gender-expansive people have been killed in 2024 alone. The most impacted group are Black trans women, who comprised 53% of the total number of those killed in 2024. Most victims are also young trans people; 3 of the victims killed in 2024 were minors. The deaths of trans people often go unreported, and when they are reported, victims are often misgendered or deadnamed (referred to by the name one used prior to transitioning) by responding authorities or the press, as was the case with nearly half of the reported cases in 2024. In a statement released by the Human Rights Coalition, the organization emphasized that each of the trans and gender expansive people killed in 2024 were “loving partners, parents, family members, friends and community members. They worked, went to school and attended houses of worship. They were real people who did not deserve to have their lives taken.”
In addition to increasing physical violence against transgender and gender-expansive individuals, the United States has witnessed a record number of anti-trans legislation introduced across the country—665 bills across 43 states proposed in 2024 alone, making it the fifth consecutive record-breaking year for total number of anti-trans bills considered in the U.S. This climate of political (as well as cultural) discrimination, coupled with an increased risk of poverty and homelessness and the disproportionate impact of gun violence, creates an increased risk of death for trans individuals in this country.
Crucially, Transgender Day of Remembrance is about honoring the lives that have been lost to anti-trans violence and recognizing the ways that trans people are victimized. Yet, it is also important to cultivate spaces of support and joy for the queer community. To that end, there was a Community Mural project held in the Multicultural Center (Stokes 106) on Wednesday as well. The Community Mural project was a collaboration between GRASE and several campus offices, and was meant as “an opportunity to honor, celebrate, and uplift our transgender and gender expansive community. It is a time to recognize the hopes, dreams, power, pain, beauty, and resilience of transgender and gender expansive lives.” Community members were encouraged to participate “in [their] own meaningful way”, and additional prompts for reflection were provided. Once completed, the mural will be hung in the GRASE Center.
On Thursday, the GRASE Center held a screening of Stephanie Lamorre’s 2021 film “Being Thunder,” which centers on the story of a two-spirit genderqueer teenager in Rhode Island. The event was intended to honor both Trans Week of Joy, Resistance, and Power, as well as Indigenous Peoples’ Month for November. GRASE Director kt Tedesco said, “It was colonialism and white supremacy that worked to create the gender binary we know today in an attempt to erase any sort of gender variance that has long existed. In reality, gender variant indigenous people were revered in their communities, often in roles like healers and teachers. Therefore, it was very important to us when planning this week to honor the history and intersections between queer, trans, and Indigenous identities.”
GRASE Program Associate Caroline Yao ’27 noted the importance of visibility: “I think there’s something really vital about the visibility of the intersections between queer, trans and gender non-conforming, and Indigenous identities—not only to honor and recognize the pain in these communities, but to see their joy. Storytelling helps us to imagine and reimagine the wondrous livelihoods of Indigenous communities. It is especially crucial to see that joy represented and visible, especially when so much of that life is stripped away through these long histories of oppression. Transgender and gender non-conforming individuals, especially those of marginalized identities, are so much more than what the media (of today) has to say about us.”
Trans Week of Joy, Resistance, and Power 2024, led by the GRASE Center, was also supported by Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS), the Student Diversity, Equity, and Access (SDEA) Team, the Office of Health and Wellbeing Education, QHouse, the Center for Career and Professional Advising (CCPA), the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship (CPGC), the Chesick Office, the Race and Ethnicity Education Office (REEO), the Hurford Center, the Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Division, the Office of International Student Support (ISSO), and the Office of Service and Community Collaboration.
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