TRANSformation at Brown University pushes back against attacks on trans rights globally
“It’s essential to remember that the struggle for trans liberation is a global struggle for democracy at large..."
Dozens of Brown University students gathered outside the John D. Rockefeller Library for a Global Trans Solidarity Rally organized by TRANSformation, a newly launched student group fighting for trans and gender-diverse rights. Trans students shared their stories and led chants. The rally, during the week of Trans Visibility Day, comes in response to escalating legislative attacks on trans communities and widespread political silence.
“I’ve experienced the chilling effect of anti-trans rhetoric on both myself and my community,” said TRANSformation organizer Levi Kim, who acted as emcee for the event. “In the past few years, we’ve seen a terrifying resurgence of anti-trans legislation and rhetoric that scapegoats us for a myriad of problems. The narratives being pushed justify state-sanctioned discrimination and violence, including the introduction of 616 anti-trans bills just this year; 616 bills targeting a community that already faces disproportionately high rates of violence and suicidality. This is what our government focuses on instead of addressing affordability, climate change, or literally anything else. They choose to regulate the freedom of trans and gender-diverse people.
“Even right here in Rhode Island, trans people are being attacked. After the Supreme Court’s transphobic shadow docket, the Cumberland School District, just 15 miles from here, is discussing altering its policy on trans and gender diverse youth,” continued Kim. “These proposed changes include forcibly outing trans students to their parents, a cruel practice that puts these kids in danger. Additionally, there have been five bills targeting trans people’s access to sports bathrooms and medical care introduced in the Rhode Island General Assembly this year.”
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Organizers noted that there was a 45 percent increase in anti-trans legislation in 2025; the ACLU reported that 616 anti-trans bills were introduced, and the trend has continued this year. Across the country, lawmakers are advancing bills that restrict legal recognition, healthcare access, and basic rights for transgender people. In some states, proposed policies would invalidate identification documents that reflect a transgender person’s gender identity, documents that are essential for everyday life, including voting, housing, and employment. “Yet,” say organizers, “there has been little meaningful pushback from many elected officials across the political spectrum, including within the Democratic Party.”
Amid this frightening climate, TRANSformation aims to build a community for trans and gender diverse students and create a visible and organized response to anti-trans legislation and rhetoric.
The United States is not alone in escalating hostility towards trans communities. In India, the 2026 Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill threatens democratic norms by ignoring established Supreme Court precedent and fundamental human rights. The bill, which was rushed through the parliament without consultation with opposition lawmakers or the National Council of Transgender Persons, narrows the legal definition of transgender identity, effectively excluding individuals who have not undergone or do not seek medical transition.
“On Monday, the Indian government signed into law a bill that strips trans people of their basic human rights. Indian trans people have been around longer than the government has existed. This bill erases people who do not want to undergo sex reassignment treatment and those who cannot afford it,” said an Indian international student in a statement read at the rally. “It erases trans men, gender queer people, South Indian people, Northeast Indian people. It requires invasive and humiliating medical examinations. It criminalizes public support for trans people and care for trans children. It de-recognizes trans partnerships and disabled trans people’s rights to choose their caretakers. Worst of all, it prevents trans people from being recognized as citizens of India.
“This bill means that a trans person who’s finally settled down with an ID may have it revoked, be publicly outed against their will, and be excluded from employment and welfare till they can hunt down a doctor who has the final say in their gender. It means that trans children who are looking desperately for help may be left without it for fear of legal action against adults who try to support them. Trans men, trans women who don’t conform to the government’s narrow Hindu conception of transfeminity, and trans people from the Northeast and South will not be given government IDs or be protected by the law if they’re assaulted or discriminated against.
“Non-binary people who already fought a long and hard battle to be recognized in 2019 are back to square one, since any school, employer, or welfare program will refuse to even identify them as transgender. We all live in fear of not being in control of what happens to our own bodies. For trans people in India, including my friends, this fear has become a reality. Forget helping you live a healthy and safe life. The government of India has officially said that unless you agree to live as exactly what it thinks your gender is, you’re not allowed to be a part of your own home country.
“This is not what democracy looks like. Democracy looks like dignity. Democracy looks like bodily autonomy. Democracy looks like a government that listens and a parliament where the people are allowed to speak. Democracy means that every person in the world has their basic human rights and that no institution is allowed to take those away. We’re here today to demand democracy for us, for our countries, and for our trans friends across the globe. Whether you’re here or watching this from a distance outside protesting or sitting at home alone, we are building community, and that is exactly what authoritarians fear. Trans rights are democratic rights. Trans solidarity is solidarity for freedom. And right now, we demand to be free.”
“It’s essential to remember that the struggle for trans liberation is a global struggle for democracy at large,” said Levi Kim. “The dehumanization of trans people has allowed them to justify taking away our basic human rights and dignity. Restrictions on gender affirming care, self-identification, and even our ability to exist in public spaces are being stripped away. Now, more than ever, we need to stand united against these attempts to erase us from everyday existence. The flyers we’re passing out include a QR code linking to a petition. Please sign your name to demand that the TransProtection Amendment Bill be sent back to parliament for reconsideration.”
The rally marks the beginning of sustained student organizing at Brown and beyond. Through further actions and coalition-building, TRANSformation will continue to push for institutional and political accountability to ensure that resistance to anti-trans policies grows.
Finn
“I came out as transgender when I was 13, and I had never met a trans person before,” said Finn, a Brown University Student. “I’m from Kansas City, and I didn’t know if there really were any in the Great Plains. But soon, regardless, I still felt the very warm and loving embrace of my community and everyone around me. The fear and uncertainty I felt dissolved into a deeper comfort than I had ever felt before. It made Kansas and Missouri somewhere that I will always consider home, no matter how hostile things become.
“As I finished middle school, I could finally imagine a future for myself, something I had never been able to do before. Today, I’m disappointed in Kansas lawmakers. In the years following my coming out, I had to watch as trans people were increasingly demonized in the media and just in the minds of everyone around me. While I had the privilege to handle any pushback to my transitioning as an interpersonal dispute, handling one or two difficult teachers, openly trans people today are faced with state-supported discrimination against their identities.
“Gender affirming care has been cut from Medicaid in 11 states, including Missouri, prohibiting low-income trans adults and youth from getting lifesaving treatment. In half of the country, trans children are excluded from rec sports and school bathrooms. I can’t stress enough how bullshit it all is. And now, last month in Kansas, nearly 2000 people woke up to a letter from their state government saying that their driver’s licenses were invalid, immediately, because they had changed their gender marker to reflect their identity. It stopped thousands of people in their tracks, threatening fines and prison for something as simple as driving to work.
“It’s no surprise that the Trump Administration is after trans people in their messaging and their actions, but the front lines fall far outside of Washington. It’s in our schools, our libraries, and now in our cars on the way to work that these attacks attempt to constrict the lives and movement of trans Americans. As students living and working in Rhode Island, it’s easy for the problems to feel distant, as if they’re based in red flyover states like Missouri. But we’ve seen the discontinuation of gender affirming care for minors at massive hospitals and schools like NYU and Yale, making it clear that even the bluest states are affected by anti-trans rhetoric.
“A threat to one trans community is a threat to every trans community and every community more broadly. Resistance is essential. Since coming to Brown, I’ve learned a lot about social justice, both in theory and in practice, connecting the trans liberation movement with generational struggles for civil rights. I’ve learned that in a time of governmental failure, one road to justice is by practicing freedom every day, rather than waiting for the tides to change. After all, anti-trans legislators will never be able to capture the expansiveness and hope embedded in every trans person.
“We’re built to change, adapt, and overcome. And in the words of the legendary Kate Bornstein, “to be trans is to be in pursuit of happiness, and there’s no law that can take that away.” The more laws they pass to try to erase our identities, the more ways we come up to reinvent ourselves and reimagine the world. It’s almost funny that anyone’s made an enemy out of us because nobody has the grit and imagination that we do. We will always resist by continuing to live fully and freely, and building strong communities. Just look at all of you.
“In Kansas, when the notoriously evil Westboro Baptist Church shows up to protest the existence of trans children on their way to school, we show up tenfold, demonstrating love that’s louder than any hate, and we do it every single time. Journalists don’t even write about it anymore because it happens so often. We resist by reminding politicians of the strength of our community, our resilience, and our astonishing joy in trying times. We tell them that we’re not going anywhere.
“I’m disappointed in Kansas lawmakers and lawmakers around the country, but I refuse to give up hope. I still believe in the love that connects all of us, and I believe in Kansans who can push back. While the fight for trans rights and recognition is never-ending, so is our will and our ability to live freely in ways that Donald Trump will never have the privilege to understand.”
Etta
“I’m a proud organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation,” said Etta. “Attacks in our communities are growing, and these ruthless attacks from above are felt, as always, from the ground. Last November, we mourned the bigoted killing of more than 50 trans people, mostly trans women, almost all of them Black. We know that in states passing anti-trans legislation, the suicide rate skyrockets. We’ve seen rising violent incarceration of trans people in prisons where our gender is the most policed, and this kind of data just scratches the surface, never including our trans siblings who are killed at the margins of a ruthless capitalist society that cuts healthcare or food stamps.
“When I lived in Philly, I found my trans dog mother, her name was Deja Alvarez, and she used to tell me stories about the cops who would sexually harass and abuse the Latina and Black trans women who were out in the street in the evenings. This was about 20 to 30 years ago, and it went on for years - until those trans women started to get organized. They brought lawsuits, built community power, protested, and ultimately forced the police to stop. They are the reason any of us can walk down the street in Philly without being harassed by law enforcement.
“It’s in times like these, when the right wing, bankrolled by the billionaires, is attacking the hard-won rights that came from the struggles of our trans parents and godparents, that we need to be looking to history, because this is a story that has been told to me over and over again in my community: winning some rights and handouts that make it just that more possible to survive, only to see those slashed a few years later as the movement dies down.
“We can’t forget that the legacy of the Trans Liberation Movement is a revolutionary one. These activists knew that the issues they faced could not be won solely through the representational politics of the gay movement at the time. They understood that the issues they were fighting for were interconnected and could only be addressed by tackling the entire system.
“Who here has heard of Street Transestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR)?
“That was a mutual aid and revolutionary organization started by Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who emerged as leaders of the Stonewall Uprising. STAR was the true continuation of the Stonewall legacy. STAR was born after a student takeover of an NYU building, Weinstein Hall, demanding the right to continue their queer balls and drag shows. Sylvia Rivera would go on to merge STAR with the Young Lords, a revolutionary Puerto Rican organization and primary partner to the Black Panthers. When people asked her how she came to her revolutionary politics, Sylvia would say, ‘We were fighting for our lives.’ Indeed, all the icons of the trans movement that we know: Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and Leslie Feinberg, were all revolutionary socialists.
“I think about Deja. If housing had been a human right 20 years ago in Philly, as it should be, she would not have faced the same violence from the cops that she did. If real healthcare were accessible, if the lifesaving medicine that so many of us need were actually our right to have, we might not have to keep speaking about suicide every year on Transgender Day of Remembrance. Housing, healthcare, and an end to police brutality: trans people are fighting for the same things that working people are fighting for.
“This rally is about global solidarity, so let’s talk about Cuba. Cuba’s a country where housing and gender affirming healthcare are considered human rights, but trans people there are still not able to get access to their medicine. Why? It’s because of the horrible blockade, which has been stripping the entire country of lifesaving medicine of all kinds for decades. The U.S. ruling classes have been forcing hospitals to close down because they cannot get enough power through the blockade. They don’t have access to sufficient surgical equipment and haven’t been able to train surgeons. Gender affirming surgeries are done once per year by visiting surgeons from Europe, and people have to wait years for their turn.
“As we gather here today, let’s remember that we don’t want a pinkwash trans narrative that the U.S. uses to justify an intervention or by Israel to demonize Arab people and justify their genocide. I want our trans liberation to be grounded firmly against white supremacy and imperialism in all of its forms. These days, we talk a lot about allyship, saying that if we trans people can get enough cis people to use their privilege in the right places and spaces, maybe we’ll be all right. It’s kind of like putting my identity down, so to speak, and coming over here and supporting your struggle. We got the trans liberation struggle, we got Palestine, but if allyship is the key, I think at some point we’ve got to ask ourselves: Why is the door still locked?
“I don’t want someone who can just support me in my struggle. I want someone who’s going to go with me all the way. No one should ever have to face this. No one should ever have to feel the choking isolation that comes from not being recognized in their gender or not getting the lifesaving medicine they need. No one should ever have to worry about walking on the street while people eye them up and down, wondering what gender they are. I don’t want to be supported as I deal with those things. I want to tear the violence out at the root and everything that ever made it possible.
“Leslie Feinberg teaches us that transphobia has a beginning in human history so that it will have an end. It was only once class society started: once people started to be a little bit more concerned with having more than others, exploiting other people’s labor, that they started to be concerned with things like inheritance, with who owned what, policing reproductive labor/nuclear families, and enforcing a gender binary. Today, it’s capitalism, oppressing trans people. It’s a racist and transphobic prison system. It’s the vilifying narratives of Trump and billionaires that try to blame this country’s problems on us to distract working-class people everywhere from our real enemies.
“We can get all the representation that we want in the world, but until we’ve got a system that is fundamentally free of capitalism and white supremacy, trans people will not be free. I don’t want allies. I want comrades. I want people who can struggle alongside me in our collective fight. That is the only way we can actually win. Transliberation is the fight for working and oppressed people to exist, live, and thrive. Leslie Feinberg put it this way: “‘What unites us is not a common sexuality or experience or identities or even self-expression. It’s that we’re up against a common enemy.’
“To me, being a trans organizer means fighting for an end to the war on Iran. The U.S. and Israel’s attacks on Iran (besides Lebanon and all of West Asia) are attacks on all working-class and oppressed people. A lot of us, in times like these, are searching for our communities and ways to empower ourselves. It can be so isolating watching everything going on, but to me, organizing alongside my comrades is not just my struggle, but the struggle against the war, ICE, genocide, and occupation. That’s where I found what it really means to be in power, because that’s where I’ve started to see the possibility of not just being recognized for my identity, but winning what my community really needs.
“I want to end this with a quote from Sylvia. I know I’ve already quoted her, but the truth is, we have so much to learn from her. This is in one of the founding documents of what would later become STAR. She writes, ‘If you want gay power, then you’re going to have to fight for it, and you’re going to have to fight until you win because once you start fighting, you’re not going to be able to stop because if you do, you’ll lose everything. You won’t just lose this fight, but all the other fights all over the country. All we fought for at Weinstein Hall was lost when we left at the request of the pigs. You people run if you want to, but we’re tired of running. We intend to fight for our rights until we get them.’”
“It’s essential to remember that trans people, along with other minority groups, such as immigrants, and the violence we’ve seen from ICE, are being scapegoated to distract us from banding together. Organizing for trans rights looks like fighting the battle on multiple fronts: here in Rhode Island, more broadly against the U.S. anti-trans vitriol, and for our collective liberation globally,” said Levi Kim. “Transphobia may be a prevalent and terrifying force in the world, but here and today, we’re standing together at the portals of transliberation and for some of us as our most open and beautiful trans selves by telling the trans people, we hear you, we see you, and we will fight with you.”
