Trans Rights Rally 3/24/23 Speech
The following is a speech I gave at this rally on March 24th, 2023. I’m the one with the megaphone and the funky pants in the image (screenshot is of the local news).
Last week, all of us at Pitt got a lovely email with the subject line “A Message to the Pitt Community: Controversial Speakers.” What followed was proof of what we on committee for the grad union have already known for years: the university administration does not care about us.
They may in text validate the identities of trans and nonbinary people but at the same time they welcome speakers who call for the eradication of “transgenderism,” a dog-whistle that so obviously calls for a genocide of queer people that I’m not sure we can still call it a dog-whistle.
As a nonbinary person, I feel constantly aware that a lot of people don’t want me to exist. It feels like cis people are ignoring the signs around us. What do you think Tennessee lawmakers are trying to do when they ban drag performance? What do you think will happen in Kentucky, which passed a bill banning gender-affirming care for trans children? What about similar bills in Pennsylvania, which have already been introduced, is anyone paying attention?
Maybe you think, with a bias I don’t necessarily share, that sure Tennessee and Kentucky are full of bigots, but Pittsburgh and surely this campus, is a progressive, safe place for queer people. Well, I’ve been called homophobic slurs on this campus. A friend of mine used to feel safe visiting Frick Park until a stranger approached them and told them they should leave because they look “too queer.” A trans fem friend of mine was physically assaulted in an explicitly transphobic way in broad daylight in an Oakland coffee shop. A nonbinary friend was assaulted and called a child abuser just for the way they were dressed at a crowded bus stop, also in the middle of the day. I could keep listing but my point is that genocidal legislation targeting trans people is already being discussed in our state government; hateful rhetoric around trans people is already leading to violence here in our city, affecting our own trans colleagues.
Some things I’ve learned about Pitt are (1) they’re not very good at handling cases like the ones I listed, but (2) they’re very good at controlling who is and isn’t allowed in their buildings at a given time. Take, for instance, a few weeks ago when Pitt Faculty were singing in the William Pitt Union to encourage administrators to bargain in good faith as the faculty union pushes for their first contract. Did the administrators “uphold the principles of protected speech and expression” then? No, they called the Pitt police, who threatened to arrest the faculty for singing.
One could say the faculty broke the rules. I’m sure there’s some university guideline stating that the only allowed demonstrations are the quiet ones that can be easily ignored and the faculty definitely didn’t want to be ignored. Why is it that that harmless singing breaks the rules but a call to genocide my queer community doesn’t?
Ann Cudd, how exactly does platforming a man who wants me and my friends to conveniently disappear actually “strengthen” the university’s values of diversity, equity, and inclusion?
Patrick Gallagher, like in your administration’s past union busting you’re hiding behind Dr Cudd, yet you too are allowing this to happen — how can you claim to be an ally? To be an ally isn’t just to say the right words, it’s a statement of power; I will use my power to fight for you. But you won’t because you’re not an ally. If you care about us at all, which to be honest is a big if, I can only assume you’re sitting this one out because you’re worried about getting sued by some fascist. Weird, you didn’t seem worried about legal fees when you paid union avoidance law-firm Ballard Spahr over 3 million dollars busting our unions. Put your neck out for us, you can afford it. Our necks are already out and we don’t have a choice.
I got involved in union organizing, among other core ideological reasons, because beyond gay pride or bisexual wrath, I believe in queer power. Power that builds itself not in reaction to failures like this but to prevent failures like this. We need to realize that this university runs on our labor, may we be faculty, staff, grad students, or often undergrads. If we stop working, this university stops working, and that’s our power, stronger than every other democratic process we have access to, and it’s not close.
There’s a genre of chant I’ve heard at a lot of protests in this city that I’m particularly infatuated with [hit them with a “What do we want? Trans Rights. When do we want it? Now. If we don’t get it? Shut it down”] — What I really want more than anything is for that whole chant to be true. The thing about that line to ‘shut it down’ is it takes a lot of work to make it a promise. You need a structure, you need to have built power, and that’s what a union is. Organized labor needs to play a central role in protecting our trans colleagues because it is where the power is; unions are the things with the power to shut it down.
My humble request as just one very pro-labor nb is that you all, who’ve bravely shown up today to defend trans rights, don’t let this be the end to your participation in this fight because many of us don’t have the choice. We all have a responsibility to organize a better world.