In a zine that appeared around campus as classes started this week titled “Pissed Off About the New Bathroom Rules?” an anonymous trans person wrote, “The worst part of all of this is that the college does not need to do all this. As an institution, Oberlin does not have to comply so loudly and visibly.” When asked about how I feel about the new bathroom bill legislation in Ohio that targets trans and intersex people and the Oberlin administration’s response, that is my general feeling.
The Oberlin College administration has failed its trans students at every step of this process. They have not kept us properly informed on what has been happening or why they have made certain choices, instead allowing the fear that laws like this produce to fester. Ohio Senate Bill 104 is vague, wrapping details about bathroom designations up in a generalized education bill. Instead of attempting to clear anything up or dispel any misinformation, the only communication the administration has had with students has been to condescendingly inform us that they support us while affirming that they will adhere to a law that seeks to erase our existence or to chastise us for rejecting compliance.
Because the administration refuses to clarify, and the Ohio government makes it incredibly difficult to find or parse through, the general gist of House Bill 183, incorporated into Senate Bill 104, is that signage in educational institutions must be changed for multi-occupancy restrooms to either male or female and institutions cannot knowingly allow people to use a bathroom designated for a sex that is not the one on their birth certificate. Let me make one thing very clear: The bill says that people cannot knowingly use a bathroom that is designated for a sex other than the one on their birth certificate but it does not outline any form of punishment if this were to happen. In addition, individuals are under no legal obligation to report people they think may be trans for using the bathroom they feel most comfortable with. It is my opinion that we all have a moral obligation to do the opposite and keep our mouths shut. The bill also does not outline any of the ways in which institutions must enforce this law. All of the choices Oberlin administrators have made about how they enforce this law, communicate about it, and do (or in this case do not do) to support their trans students, can solely be attributed to them.
Just as they have done for countless other systemically marginalized and targeted groups, the Oberlin administration has abandoned support for their trans students to protect the institution. On Feb. 4, President Ambar sent out a message titled “Oberlin’s work in a time of uncertainty.” As we have grown to expect, it was full of allusions to vague threats to democracy and community without ever directly addressing who is being targeted and evocations of Oberlin’s “progressive” history without any promises of how the school will live up to that legacy. All I can say is what “work”? What work does Oberlin do in “time[s] of uncertainty” to actually protect its vulnerable members or, God forbid, resist fascist ideals? We can read Fanon and Feinberg in class all we want, but what does that mean if when Oberlin students take action to create change that aligns with the “ethical values that define Oberlin,” the administration shuts it down with excuses, threats of punitive retaliation, or by calling the police? What does Oberlin stand for or represent if it is not the “progressive” values it loves to post on all of its admissions brochures?
I understand that in many ways Oberlin is a target for hypersurveillance under this current administration and a wave of right-wing ideology, especially with JD Vance as vice president. Trans people, like all marginalized groups, know well what it means to be targeted and surveilled. What I cannot understand is why Oberlin would reinforce these policies on its own students. But even that is par for the course for an institution of higher education, particularly one that has made it clear time and time again that its commitment to progressive ideals lies solely in its marketability and evocation of white-washed histories of inclusivity, and only for as long as it makes them money.
Recently, I have seen a lot of posts on social media and heard discussion of the fact that trans people have always existed and will continue to exist. That is true and I think it is important to remember in times of panic and fear. However, I think it is even more important to remember that trans people have always resisted. We can look to the work of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries and the ways that they supported Black and Brown trans people, sex workers, and impoverished youth in New York, as well as their connections with The Black Panther Party and the Young Lords. When trans women like CeCe McDonald are incarcerated in men’s prisons, we not only seek to support them and get them out, but we also fight for the abolition of all carceral systems. We must remember that trans existence, queer existence, racialized existence, and the existence of all subjugated and systemically minoritized groups have always been criminalized in one form or another in this country. That has not stopped us. While the bathroom bills are scary, particularly for what they signal about the rise in supremacist and fascist thinking that is at the core of the United States’ founding, we must remember that this is not the end. Trans people are fighting for their lives every day, globally. For some these bathroom bills are a wake-up call and for many they are nothing new.
I refuse to argue my humanity to any administration, governmental or collegiate, past or present. It is clear they do not see trans students, undocumented students, students of color, and students receiving financial aid as anything more than bragging rights that they can tote to their next dinner party that our money pays for. Instead, I am more interested in what we can do to not only support one another but fight for each other. We must see our struggles not only as interconnected but as one struggle against the same systems that terrorize and violate all those deemed disposable by white supremacist capital. We have got to get meaner, we have got to get organized.
On its final page, the zine reminds us, “They want us to feel powerless, when in fact, we hold all the power. We have the power to not follow this law, we have the power to make sure nobody else follows this law either. Most importantly though, we have the power to stop the normalization of transphobia, and make sure all of our trans comrades are cared for and safe.”
