OPINION: Supporters of trans youth must improve their allyship

This Saturday marked International Transgender Day of Visibility, a day dedicated to celebrating trans people and acknowledging continued discrimination and struggles within the trans community.

In the country at large, trans people continue to face hatred and violence, demonstrated by a number of jarring statistics. The average life expectancy of a trans woman in the United States is between 30 and 35 years stemming from limited access to key resources.  Homicide rates against trans women have been steadily on the rise, and one in five trans people have been homeless in their lifetime — an issue exacerbated by the Housing and Urban Development Department’s recent decision to exclude trans women and gender queer people from women’s homeless shelters. LGBTQ youth comprise an estimated 40 percent of the United States’ more than 1.6 million homeless youth. The past year has seen President Donald Trump’s administration try to ban trans people from serving in the military, shrug off discrimination experienced by trans students and give health care providers a pass on denying services to trans people on the grounds of “religious freedom.” And since 2015, a new wave of religious freedom policies in North Carolina have sparked a movement across conservative states to require trans people to use the bathrooms corresponding with the sex they were assigned at birth.

These phenomena hold staggering implications for the safety of trans young trans people. In other words, it’s time for many to come together as a generation and determine what it means to be allies. So many of our peers are not only being denied opportunity, but also being shut out of society, as they are pushed into homelessness and as their rights to basic public facilities like restrooms are consistently made a source of contention and conflict. As young people, they lack the resources, independence and decision-making power of adults, and their lives and living standards are largely shaped by systemic challenges to the most basic rights.

Homelessness and exclusion from public facilities and resources affect trans youths’ health and safety. In addition to being unable to access housing, often as a result of being pushed out by intolerant family, trans youth can be denied by religious charities, and by gender-segregated homeless shelters, which too often turn young trans women away for the same reasons they are often turned away from the appropriate restroom. They are misrepresented as perpetrators of sexual violence who will supposedly target cisgender women, and this misrepresentation stems from the understanding that trans women are not “real” women. They are perceived by intolerant politicians as merely young men in disguise who would endure all of the social repercussions of identifying as trans solely to prey on cis women and girls.

This popular piece of oppressive, anti-LGBTQ folklore could easily be debunked by anyone who cared to do a bit of research. They would find that trans people are statistically more likely to be victims of sexual harassment and assault in public facilities than perpetrators, with virtually zero documented examples of them responsible for any sexual misconduct in public places. In 2016, one study showed almost 60 percent of trans Americans have avoided public restrooms fearing confrontation, and claim they have been harassed and assaulted in these facilities, themselves.

In 2016, former President Barack Obama’s administration tackled the issue of discriminatory bathroom policy on school campuses head-on, as his Education Department issued guidelines requiring public schools to allow trans and non-binary students to safely use the restrooms they felt comfortable using. The guidelines swiftly drew more than a dozen lawsuits, but they remained intact throughout the remaining duration of his presidency. Less than a year later, the Trump administration’s Education Department repealed these guidelines, and earlier this year issued a new policy. As a part of this new policy, the department will no longer consider campus bathroom discrimination cases, roughly falling in line with the Justice Department’s agenda of no longer acknowledging trans people as a protected class in discrimination cases.

At USC, the University officially announced early in 2015 that it would begin to offer gender-neutral housing options. Gender-neutral restrooms are now available in nearly every campus building.

And yet, young people who want to be allies to their trans peers must recognize that in many ways, this isa generational issue. The fight for rights and respect for trans people is one that we must take into our own hands, and that means listening to trans people’s voices and advocating for them in spaces where they can’t advocate for themselves. Sometimes, USC’s administration will be with us, and sometimes, against us, but we need to hold them accountable just as we need to hold our off-campus representatives accountable for policy decisions affecting trans people. But in order to be allies, with or without institutional support, we must continue to fight, either way.