You know the drill - write to this reporter and say "Hey! This is damn ood reporting on a crucial issue. Keep giving us more of the same!" I will be doing that AND writing a letter to my school saying "hey - I remember when you refused to make these changes and you made my life hell because of it...I'm glad you saw the light."
Transgender student activist at Macalester College honored for work to advance equality
Junior and 18 others will be honored for efforts to expand opportunities for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students
Doug Belden
dbelden@pioneerpress.com
Posted: 03/30/2009 12:01:00 AM
From organizing campus discussions to identifying resources to making new signs for bathroom doors, Chloe Mirzayi has been in the middle of efforts at Macalester College to expand opportunities for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.The junior, a Colorado native, is being honored next week along with 18 other Minnesota students with a "Moxie Award" from the Pfund Foundation, which recognizes outstanding efforts to advance LGBT issues.
Born male, Mirzayi realized she was meant to live as a woman, and she made the transition last year.
The change involved growing her hair, hormone therapy, laser hair removal and work to modify her deep voice.
She got taunts and laughter at first.
"I think that comes from ignorance more than anything," she said, adding it made her more determined. "It's an educational thing. I have tried to speak out."
Mirzayi led a campuswide meeting last year about gender neutrality at Macalester. She's the resident assistant for the college's gender-neutral living space and has advocated for gender-neutral restrooms on campus (including making the signs for them).
She has pushed to get gender identity added to the nondiscrimination language in the student government constitution, and she's working to get LGBT programming included in Macalester's orientation program for first-year students.
"I think she's definitely a role model on campus," said Shelby Rubbelke, a graduate hall director who works with Mirzayi.
Mirzayi said the college has been a safe environment for her personal transition and to push for broader change. "Macalester has been really supportive."
5 comments:
I recently read an article (maybe in the Mac Weekly?) about the 'just proposed' gender neutral housing and how fast it had gone through since it had only been mentioned last year. I guess when things happen before the current editors were on campus they don't count. But I was glad to hear that things had finally happened.
I'm am also surprised to read that there were 4 transgender students (is it rude or derogatory to shorten that to just trans students? I honestly am not sure. I just wrote trans first and then thought that it could be used in a way I wasn't intended and so I changed it) on campus since I remember reading another article while I was there arguing that we shouldn't worry so much about 'pandering' to the transgender population/causes since there weren't any transgender students on campus. Not that I should be surprised that such an article would have it's facts wrong, I guess.
Huzzah!!
LOVE to you!
Awesome! Chloe's a YP4 fellow, so I'm extra proud.
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