At AWC, trans students share support, challenges and hope during awareness week

"I know you all heard about this news, which is why we got snacks for celebration: they almost got rid of same sex marriage," Gay Straight Alliance Club President Santiago Palacios said. "This week, they almost got rid of same sex marriage. Luckily, the hearing was rejected and we got to keep our rights to marry someone of the same sex. However, we don't want that to happen again, that risk. We want to push. We want to be loud. We want people to know that we're here. That we're here. We're queer and we're not going anywhere. We want to be f——— annoying."

Palacios uttered an oops which was met with laughter around the room — a moment of levity in an otherwise serious announcement.

It was Nov. 13 on Arizona Western College's Yuma Campus. The GSA Club's calendar noted it was also the first day of Transgender Awareness Week. But students spent it with a moment of celebration for the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to decline a case challenging its landmark decision to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide.

"This is how, like, tumultuous, the current political climate has gotten that we are celebrating the fact that we kept something rather than we gained something," said Levi Kesler, a nonbinary and transmasculine student at AWC. "Like, it feels really... I don't know if I would use the word dystopian, but it's kind of sad. It's a bit melancholy to think that, like, we are so stuck in the current state of politics that we can't really achieve more than what we have right now. It's upsetting."

Despite the looming sense of political weariness, trans students were eager to share their experiences in observance of trans awareness week.

Each year from November 13–19, people across the U.S. celebrate trans awareness to increase understanding about trans people and the issues they face. This week leads into Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20, which honors the memory of trans people whose lives were lost to anti-trans violence.

Nationally, transgender communities have faced a rising number of bills that would restrict access to healthcare, education, legal recognition and full participation in public life.

Nevertheless, they persist. So KAWC sought to learn what it's like to be a trans college student in a time where visibility is being met with some pushback. Here's what we learned.

Receptions can be mixed.

"Here in Yuma, it's a very mixed bag at least for my experience," said Jessica Priebe, a transfeminine student. "Out in public, I've had a lot of hateful, spiteful comments, particularly from, like, older people or anything. But to people like my doctors and stuff, they all treat me wonderfully. But generally in Yuma itself, I haven't seen a ton of nice comments. It's mostly just been hateful. However, at AWC, I've seen the complete opposite: it's like a totally different world where I've seen, like, so many supportive people or compliments on just anything small, like an outfit."

For Levi, who's been on testosterone through hormone replacement therapy (HRT), the local climate has been unexpectedly easier.

"Arizona used to be a red state, but we've kind of been getting, like, purple and then kind of blue in the past couple of years, so I've been feeling really grateful for that," he said. "When I was in high school, I would send emails to all of my teachers being like, 'Hey, call me this name and use these pronouns for me' and all of them respected it. I was really surprised by that, actually."

AJ Ramos, who identifies as transgender and uses she/her pronouns, remarked that she feels safe being herself on campus.

"I've worn women's clothes in classrooms before and it seems professors don't take note of that," she said. "They still see me as the same student as I go into class always, and I think the professors around here are pretty progressive.

"I think that if we continue with this kind of ... just normal attitude towards each other, then I don't think that we have much of a problem around here 'cause even if this is a community college and we come from different places, we still have a pretty good bias around here with how we treat each other, you know?"

Elliott—whose last name is being withheld to protect his identity—is genderfluid and transmasculine. They use they/them and he/him pronouns. Being closeted has resulted in a variable experience for him, and it profoundly impacts the way he navigates the world.

"I'm not fully out; like I'm not out to, like, family and stuff, but I'm out to my friends, and I don't know if I'm just lucky but most of my friends have been very accepting," they said. "But being genderfluid is difficult because when you come out, no one really knows what that is ... It's so difficult to fall within an identity that's not well known because you have to get people's first reactions to something that they've never heard of before, and it's terrifying."

Elliott explained for KAWC readers and listeners that being gender fluid means that your sense of gender can vary with time. For some, it can change on a daily basis; for others, it might change slowly over time.

But he described it for himself rather simply: " I'm just a trans guy and my gender's a little, you know, funky!"

Gender can mean different things to different people.

Despite the existence of catch-all terms, gender can be unique to each person. What someone considers feminine or masculine may be entirely different to another. And gender can mean something different to each individual.

AJ, for example, explained that her favorite character from BlazBlue really resonates with her perception of gender.

"She has the body of a man, but a soul of a lady—she's very elegant—and because of that, she holds no compromise to who she is," she said. "And I think that's what I would like to be as well: no compromise to who I am. No matter what form I take, even after transitioning at one point in my life, no matter what I wear, I still want to have that same love that I can confront to others and that we could all come together by the end of it."

Transitioning isn't a uniform experience.

Jessica explained that transitioning varies from one trans person to another. While one person may wish to undergo HRT and surgeries, another may simply wish to wear different clothing and use different pronouns.

"I view it as like a train: you start from the back where, like, the caboose where you just discovered that you are trans, then you move onto the next car where—I'm going to use myself as an example—you try on a few feminine clothing and realize like, 'Hey, I like this," and it goes on from there," she said. "But that train is not a singular train. You could hop off at that station and go to the social train and just transition socially without going on the meds or you could go full way with surgeries and everything.

"It is the ultimate form, in my opinion, of freedom of expression and that train's infinite. It can go on forever until you hop off and say, 'I'm not getting back on that train. I have defined myself as who I want to be.'"

Family acceptance is transformative.

For many of the students, family acceptance—and the lack thereof—has shaped their journeys. Jessica, for example, described conflict with her grandparents early in her transition.

She said that her grandfather had begun to heavily push her into becoming masculine.

"It got to a point where the arguing and everything got so much of a toll on myself, I almost ended—because I am very open about this—I almost did end up taking my life because I could not handle my family falling into shambles," she said.

Jessica reassured that everything is wonderful now, and that's because of a phone call her mother had with her grandfather.

Levi’s father similarly had a turnaround. They shared that they moved out of the house because they sensed that their presence was creating a lot of tension. They had already begun taking testosterone at 19 because "it was kind of a matter of life or death." But their parents were diametrically opposed on the matter.

"So I was like, 'Okay, if I just remove myself from the situation, hopefully it will be better,' and what actually ended up happening when I moved out was I ended up actually reconciling with my dad."

In a long text chain, his father apologized.

Levi ended up moving back in with his parents this year, and he remarked while things are a little nebulous, they don't feel hostile like they did before. And his father's body language has become a lot more relaxed in his presence.

"We talk and we hang out now every now and then, we have dinner together—which feels so normal if you have an okay or a good dad, but for me its like really big to be able to spend time with him and not feel scared or nervous," they said.

In Elliott's case, his family's attitudes have influenced his choice to remain closeted from them.

"I'm not out to my family mostly because the idea of coming out to my parents is terrifying," they said. "I know they're not gonna be accepting; like, I know that that's where they are."

He remarked that he can't come out to his siblings or cousins either.

"I have a cousin that goes to school here and I get nervous because I'm, like, if she finds out, I have no clue who that's going to get to," he said.

There's always room for improvement.

The students expressed that AWC has been a generally supportive environment. While professors are often respectful of preferred names or nicknames, students can enter their preferred names and pronouns in their self-service account—no explanation needed.

When asked where the college might be able to improve, they suggested adding some gender neutral restrooms and gender-inclusive housing.

Peers, they say, can help simply by avoiding assumptions—and avoiding stares.

"I do think that some people need to be a bit more open, especially when I go to the cafeteria," Jessica commented. "There are a lot—it's mostly men, to be fair—who give me weird stares 'cause I dress very differently and sometimes I wear my wristbands that show my pride flags and they obviously stare at me and go like, 'What the heck?' But I think especially when you're coming to a community college, you need to be ready for anything."

Looking ahead to the future, Jessica hopes for something simple:

Reporting for this article is supported by a grant from the Arizona Local News Foundation.