Adrian D’Angelo feels stuck in a state of uncertainty. After legally changing his name, he’s still waiting for his passport to study abroad, which he speculates has been delayed due to his self-selected gender marker.
“My current legal personhood is in limbo because of this executive order, which is scary and upsetting for me,” said D’Angelo, a freshman history major. “Especially because that is part of the draw for Temple University for a lot of people, I would like to study abroad. I would also like to have legal documentation by personhood, first and foremost.”
On his first day back in office, President Donald Trump rescinded Title IX rules and orders protecting diversity and LGBTQ rights from former President Joe Biden’s administration. Trump also signed a series of executive orders targeting transgender inclusion policies. The orders mandate that the federal government only recognize two genders, male and female, restrict gender affirming care for those younger than 19 and restrict identity-based bathroom access and sports participation.
In response, seven transgender Americans represented by the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit against Trump and the U.S. Department of State for refusing to allow passport gender marker changes, arguing it infringes on their constitutional rights.
The series of executive orders impacting transgender Americans has left many Temple students and faculty members concerned for their future and access to gender-affirming care under the Trump administration.
Jasper Ragan is frustrated by the executive orders, believing they disregard the social nuances of gender that are prominent even in cisgender culture.
“I think that it completely invalidates intersex and nonbinary identities,” said Ragan, a junior liberal studies major. “It [makes it] so that gender isn’t a spectrum anymore when it really is something so, so, so vast and experienced so differently by every single person.”
Catching On Thieves, a film and media studies professor, echoes these sentiments and thinks Trump is weaponizing language to reject countless people’s existence by saying there are only two genders.
“Language shapes how we treat each other,” Thieves said. “It shapes what we can even imagine as possible. It shapes what we decide not to look at. We know cross-culturally, languages that possess the ability to make different connections can treat new emotions in people physiologically.”
One of Trump’s recent executive orders blocks schools from requiring staff to use the names and pronouns that match a transgender student’s gender identity.
Support from faculty and students at Ragan’s school was an important and validating experience for him while he experimented with his identity before settling on a more permanent name, he said.
“If I didn’t have that experimentation, and if I didn’t have the support to experiment like that, I don’t know what I would have done,” Ragan said. “I worry a lot about kids and them not having support in that way.”
While some students and faculty share a sense of fear and uncertainty about the future, they also feel the need to persevere and fight through adversities by expressing themselves.
Despite recent executive orders and other decisions in Washington, D.C. being difficult for members of the transgender community to process, Ragan is not letting his fear stop him from expressing his identity, especially in places he feels need queer representation, a sentiment Thieves shares.
“You need to find joy in this so that it can balance out the pain,” Thieves said. “And allow yourself a bigger part of this too. I think that’s really important for trans folks.”
On Jan. 29, Temple President John Fry addressed recent orders and the overall state of uncertainty in a statement to the university community.
“Since our founding in 1884, Temple has focused on providing educational and experiential opportunities to individuals from every walk of life,” Fry wrote. “That mission will not change.”
Some students hope the university collaborates with student-led organizations on campus that allow transgender students to lead conversations about these issues as well as expand gender-neutral bathrooms and provide more medical resources.
“If we have a past, we have a future,” D’Angelo said. “And oh, boy, do we have a past.”
Be the first to comment