Being in Women and Gender Studies courses brings a lot of amazing experiences to my attention (ex: Mask You Live In, Vagina Monologues, etc.) and Friday I met a woman who I wish you all could have had the pleasure to meet.
Her name is Riley, a KU grad and she is a transwoman who is such an open book i applaud her for it. As she stood in front of our class you could feel a sense of awkwardness flood the room because many of us have not had the opportunity to have someone be so open with their life before and are so afraid of asking something that will make her uncomfortable.
Some people, like myself, decided to be open and honest in my curiosity. I do not know anyone on a very personal level to ask such questions to so i decided to take advantage of this opportunity.
Riley spoke about how she was one of the lucky ones, her parents were fully supportive of her transition along with her friend group and understanding professors who never gave her a hard time. Of course she encountered some who were not the sweetest cupcakes in the bunch but with her other support systems she made it through and she is killing it to say the least. She spoke about her relationships and her transition, she spoke about her dysphoria that she has to encounter because medically she is forced to acknowledge that biologically she is not female although the other 97% of her, is in fact female.
The most important thing she touched upon was in the last few moments we had with her and she spoke about change. How we cannot sit back and make excuses about our lack of time but still expect things to get better. If we want change and to better the country we live in, we need to get involved. Speak out, write about our frustrations, go to protests and marches, attend meetings in your community, do whatever we can to keep our country safe for everyone. We cannot just wait for the change we want to happen, WE have to be the change.