"The Next Wave Of Feminism Supports The Empowerment Of All Genders"
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Transgender Day of Visibility (TDoV), celebrated every year on March 31st, is a day to empower the global trans community and recognise their accomplishments. Trans Student Educational Resources (TSER) explains that the day is meant to uplift trans people, give them an opportunity to speak out, and take action.
Lily Zheng, a writer, activist, and design researcher at Stanford University worked with TSER to come up with this year's theme — "surviving, thriving"
(#TransThriving) — to recognise "that while visibility is important, we must take action against transphobia." The idea that "visibility is not enough alone to bring transgender liberation" is one Zheng and Stanford sociologist Alison Ash Fogarty explore in their upcoming book, Gender Ambiguity in the Workplace.
(#TransThriving) — to recognise "that while visibility is important, we must take action against transphobia." The idea that "visibility is not enough alone to bring transgender liberation" is one Zheng and Stanford sociologist Alison Ash Fogarty explore in their upcoming book, Gender Ambiguity in the Workplace.
Gender Ambiguity contains 22 stories from gender non-conforming and trans people about their wide-ranging experiences at work. Fogarty started her research in 2008, after learning more about widespread violence against trans people. "I really walked away from that experience feeling super incentivised to help create change, and this kind of naïve but beautiful belief that if we could educate the world, we could stop the violence," she tells Refinery29.
Zheng, who has shared her story with The New York Times, joined the project when it was a few years underway, and says she felt responsible as an out trans woman of colour in academia "to take my activism and my passion for helping trans folks and translate that into research."
Ahead, they talk to Refinery29 about how the conversation around being trans has evolved over the last decade, what it means to "genderfuck" with people's expectations of being male and female, and what it takes to create a truly cutting-edge, inclusive workplace.
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