Transgender Voices Transgender Rights*

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In response to an escalating number of violent acts against transgender individuals at City College of San Francisco, the campus HIV/STI Education Office set out to establish a new project. What emerged is Transgender Voices Transgender Rights. This new project places transgender voices at the center of collaborative education and advocacy efforts to demand consistent, campus-wide protection of the civil rights of transgender students—protection to which all students are entitled.

A social event, guided by faculty and students, brings the public together in an open forum where transgender stories are exchanged in various channels, and where voices join in celebration of humankind in all its wonderfully diverse facets.

In an effort to support the transgender population on campus, as well as in the local community, faculty and students from the Graphic Communications, Transitional Studies, and Health Science Departments engaged in a semester-long collaboration, collecting stories and experiences from the transgender community in the Bay Area. The book that resulted is one venue through which those stories are shared.

The purpose of the book was to present humankind in all its diversity and to give voice to the stories of transgender individuals. The book exposed the unseen—revealing aspects of personal experiences that are often overlooked. Thus the commonalities between all people become apparent, and prejudice is once again put to the test.

*Partially sponsored by grants from the CCSF Mentoring and Service Learning Office.