Exploring Gender Identity and Expression

Posted May 5, 2021 in Exhibits

With the current political climate and racial violence that has flooded both social media and many news outlets during the past year, it is easy to become overwhelmed with the amount of negativity received, read, or heard from all aspects of daily life. It becomes stressful to even glance at the ‘News Feed’ on our Facebook or Twitter pages, causing most to avoid that section completely. Unfortunately, ignoring the stream of updates causes us to miss the good news when it happens.

On March 31st, 2021, Governor Ralph Northam signed House Bill 2132 into law, banning the “Gay/Trans Panic Defense,” effective on July 1st, 2021. Virginia is the 12th state in the US to officially ban the use of the ‘gay/trans panic defense’ and is the first Southern state to do so.

In celebration of this milestone, JMU’s SOGIE Programming and the Office of Disability Services have collaborated to present:

Exploring Gender Identity and Expression

This display contains various resources that dive deep into:

• Defining Transgender and Gender Identity
• The long history of the fight for Trans Equal Rights
• What it means to be a Black, Indigenous, and/or a Person of Color who is questioning their Gender Identity or identifying as Trans/Gender-nonconforming, and
• The experiences of Trans/Gender-nonconforming people who have disabilities

Within the display are more than 50 resources available through JMU Libraries for you to explore the reason many are looking to redefine Gender. We encourage you to educate yourself about the past to better understand the present, to amplify and listen to the voices of those targeted for being Transgender/Gender-nonconforming, and to confront the current and ongoing injustices around the world.