About 60 people gathered inside Wollman Hall Wednesday night to hear Ian Daniels, the co-host of Viceland’s “Gaycation,” speak. But before he started the discussion, a representative of The New School Queer Collective offered a critique of the bathrooms outside the event hall.
“Though the signs on the bathrooms say otherwise, they are for all genders, we love The New School, but also it needs to change,” Elliott Ryan said.
Little did Ryan, or anyone else, know the urgency of this statement. The event started at 6pm, just an hour later, the Trump administration reversed former president Obama’s directive that required publically-funded schools to allow transgender students to use school bathrooms that aligned with their gender identity.
The so-called bathroom ban came to mainstream attention in March 2016 when North Carolina passed legislation that outlawed the use of public restrooms other than the ones aligned with one’s gender at birth. National outrage resulted in Obama’s guidelines, making such laws illegal, in May and was hailed as a major achievement in transgender civil rights.
As the evening unfolded, Daniels told his own queer story and the stories made famous by “Gaycation,” the LGBTQ documentary travel show dealing with global queer issues, politics and culture. However, when it came time for questions, the stakes got higher.
Tatenda Ngwaru, a 23-year-old transgender, intersex activist from Zimbabwe arrived in New York in August of 2016, fleeing an “unbearable” situation. Since arriving, she’s found little to no support from clinics or organizations.
“I put my ass on the line — excuse the french — to save others’ lives as well as my own and I cannot get help from anyone here,” she said.
A number of organization representatives urged her to speak to them following the event.
By 9 the next morning, a rapid response rally had been planned for Thursday evening at the Stonewall Inn. The Greenwich Village queer landmark was packed, with crowds spilling out onto Seventh Avenue on the west side and Waverly Place on the east.
Congressman Jerry Nadler took the stage and addressed the crowd. “We will fight against discrimination against trans youth and that little man will go slinking home,” he shouted, referencing President Trump.
The attitude of the protestors was clear. They chanted, “This will not stand; we will not go back.” Students from NYU gathered with handmade signs reading “RESIST.” A mother stood with her 8-year-old trans daughter, who held a sign that she’d made herself. It read, “Trump, please let me use the girls’ bathroom.”
The reversal of the federal directive places the issue of transgender restrooms within the hands of individual states rather than making it a federal, civil rights issue. A representative of Lambda Legal, a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people, remained firm that any discrimination on the basis of gender was in direct violation of Title IX. Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity.
The speaking portion of the protest came to a close with an organizer from Equality NY, a political action committee dedicated to supporting candidates for public office in New York State who are committed to the civil rights and needs of the LGBTQI community, urging the crowd to continue showing up.
“We are unfortunately expecting many more of these events,” the speaker cried. “Are you going to be there?”
The crowd of protesters roared in agreement and erupted into a call and response chants: “When our trans youth are under attack, what do we do? FIGHT BACK!”
Roughly 60 people were in attendance at Ian Daniels’ talk in Wollman Hall, and the representative of The New School Queer Collective’s name is Elliott Ryan. An earlier version of this story miscalculated the amount of people at the talk, as well as misspelled Ryan’s name.
Photo by Savannah Turley.