My Transgender Life After Wesleyan | A Transphobic Experience in Philly

Jean Pockrus

July 7, 2008

Yesterday I was violently, physically attacked by a group of transphobic teenagers, three girls probably between the ages of 15 and 17 years old, in downtown Philadelphia. I was waiting for a bus on the corner as the three girls were walking across the street, staring at me and saying aloud to each other, "Is that a boy or a girl?" Then they began addressing me, "Are you a boy or a girl?" while looking down on me and laughing.

I did what I usually do in these transphobic situations when I'm taunted or stared at. I stared back. I stared back at the girls and said plainly, "It's rude to stare at people." (I also usually answer: "No, I'm not a boy or a girl," to that familiar question, "Are you a boy or a girl?" But I didn't say anything else this time.) One of their friends who was walking with them, a young man who looked about twenty, shouted, "Oh! That bitch said 'respect her.'" I thought the group was just going to continue walking on and leave me alone, but a few moments later one of the girls took a few sauntering steps towards me, smiling a little, and then pulled her arm back fast and punched me hard in the left side of my face.

It hurt. It stung really badly and it made me dizzy. I couldn't really see out of my left eye for a couple of seconds and my memory is kind of blurry following the moments after it happened. The punch didn't knock me down however, and somehow I put the pain aside. I started asking the girls why they were so violent. I told my friend Matt Valades '08, who had been sitting on the curb next to me and who leapt up to help me after I was hit, to call the police. I followed the girls down the street, telling them that they were violent and transphobic and that they had just committed a crime. I tried to get one of them to give me the name of the girl who hit me, but she pretended not to know her. "I just met her. I don't even know her," is all she would say. One of the girls insulted me viciously as I followed the one who hit me. She laughed despicably in my face and hurled the worst, homophobic, transphobic insults at me that I've ever heard. I won’t repeat them here.

They insulted me the entire time, while I tried to talk some sense into them, telling them that they had been part of an assault and that they would be arrested. I told them that they should treat me like a human being. I told them that they were transphobic (although I realized that they probably weren’t familiar with the word). Anything I said was pointless. How could I name the crime, when they couldn’t even understand my terminology? They called me names and swore at me the whole time. Then, two of them started reaching in their purses, yelling at me, repeating, "I got a gun, bitch." I was slightly scared, but I was on a street in downtown Philly in broad daylight and these girls were yelling, "I've got a gun." This scene must have looked like madness from the outside. It was horrifying to be treated as less than human and to be assaulted by ignorant teenagers who thought it was funny to hurt someone like me. They attacked me for fun and seemed to enjoy the confrontation the entire time. They never stopped laughing at me.

What the hell was I supposed to do if they had guns? Run? If they were going to shoot me, it was over already. There was nowhere to run on that street. Bystanders on the street just watched this all happen and to my knowledge, no one got involved or called the police. I don't blame them. The entire scene must have looked confusing. I kept following the girls, trying to keep them in sight in case the police showed up, although now I think that I should've gone the other way when they continued to threaten me with violence.

Long story short, the girls ran away laughing and I gave up chasing them because I knew the police wouldn't get there in time to catch them and that I was likely to miss my bus if I kept following them. I went back to the bus stop and sobbed until the bus came.

The sensation of pain in my cheek really came back once I stopped chasing the girls. It hurt to chew, but the punch didn't leave any serious bruising. My left cheek was reddish and felt slightly swollen for a day. It's not noticeable today, two days later.

I'm lucky that my friend Matt went with me on this trip to Philly. I'm glad I wasn't alone when all this happened. It could have been worse. The kids got away with assaulting me, but at least Matt calling the police scared them off. I don’t have a cell phone and couldn’t have called myself. I told a friend about this experience and she recommended that I carry mace and take self-defense lessons.

Just an hour earlier that day in Philly, I had been at the office of a surgeon who specializes in serving transgender people, Dr. Sherman Leis of The Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery. I was seen about having chest reconstruction surgery. It's an unfortunate coincidence that I was assaulted during such a trip. I had to go through the experience of seeing the doctor, which had some minor discomforts associated with it, and then be insulted on the street for how I look and who I am.

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I want to reach out to transgender and gender non-conforming activist groups in Philly and let them know about what happened to me on the street that day. Both physical violence and verbal assault against LGBTQ and gender non-conforming people are under-reported. Right now, I don’t know who to tell about this. It’s a very isolating experience in many ways, but it makes me want to work harder to create a better world for LGBTQ and gender non-conforming people. We need to have a way to measure the climate for LGBTQ and gender non-conforming people and we need ways to educate each other and our larger communities about incidents of assault and harassment.

I plan to post more about LGBQ, transgender, genderqueer, and gender non-conforming life during and after college in the future on www.collegeotr.com/wesleyan. I want to use my experiences to bring these issues to light. Please email me (or post responses on this site) with questions, concerns, stories, comments, and suggestions. jeanpockrus@gmail.com

* When I told a friend from Wesleyan about this, she was surprised that it happened to me. She suggested that going to Wesleyan makes you 'forget about' what the real world is like. Our sense of what gender non-conforming means at Wesleyan is different than what it means to not fit the norms for gender expression and appearance in the larger society. Perhaps we are more likely to meet and become accustomed to people who don't fit the norm at Wesleyan and it's possible that we lose sight of what they may experience in their daily lives when they aren't at school.

** To those unfamiliar with my college, Wesleyan University is well-known for being a place that LGBTQ and gender non-conforming students are attracted to because of its reputation as an inclusive, tolerant, progressive, even radical (in some ways) institution. It's hard to describe Wesleyan's reputation here in a single sentence, but hopefully you get the picture.

*** I actually identify as gender non-conforming and genderqueer. I just tend to use female pronouns and more recognizable, mainstream terms like "transgender" because it's easier. 

Because so many people have read this post in the last couple days (nearly 2,000 people), I want to add a list of resources for those who want to learn more.

Authors and Books:

Leslie Feinberg, Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=cWuG0efwzJoC&dq=transgender&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=_TkF51pCPB&sig=zGwdCZpAX0BcUX_ttiNx1TKO_J8&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result#PPP1,M1

Feinberg's book is the beginnings of a history of transgender and gender non-conforming people. It's a very readable and fascinating introduction to the area and will introduce you to some people who have shaped the movement to gain rights and respect for transgender people. You can read a few pages of the book by clicking the link above.

Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us

Mattilda a.k.a. Matt Bernstein Sycamore, Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity

A few who have suffered or died as a result of gender or sexual orientation -based discrimination and violence: (These stories may be difficult to read, but try to learn about their lives and the adversities they had to face.)

Sakia Gunn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakia_Gunn

Simmie Williams

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/02/22/another-gender-non-conforming-person-murdered/

Matthew Shepard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard

Informational websites:

Lambda Legal: Transgender Rights

http://www.lambdalegal.org/our-work/issues/rights-of-transgender-people/
 

Gendertalk | Speaking the Language of Gender

www.gendertalk.com

Genderqueer Wikipedia Entry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genderqueer

Activism-related websites:

Transgender Law Center

http://www.transgenderlawcenter.org/

Radical Homosexual Agenda 
(Don't let the phrase intimidate you, the RHA is great fun for all genders and orientations!)

http://www.radicalhomosexualagenda.org/

Trans Day of Rememberance

http://www.gender.org/remember/day/