The following remarks were given at the 2018 Fall Forum on Governance: CultureMakers as part of my introduction of the new TCG Circle. This is a cross-post from the TCG Circle. Photo above by Ryan Bourque // Instagram: @BourquePhoto So hi everyone. I’m Gus Schulenburg, director of communications at TCG, and I can’t tell you how good it feels to say, I use she/her pronouns. I use those pronouns because I am an out and proud transgender woman, though I did not expect to be out at this Fall Forum. While my medical transition began earlier this year, I had expected my social transition would happen more slowly. I wanted to give the magic of hormone replacement more time to grow my hair back, more time to shape my body to match my heart, more time to figure out a damn sense of style. I definitely had not planned to come out here at the peak awkwardness of my second puberty. But then, a few weeks ago, the administration proposed government agencies adopt an unchanging, binary definition of gender to be assigned at birth; erasing federal recognition of me and my 1.4 million trans and non-binary siblings. In that moment, I knew I couldn’t be anything but out at this Fall Forum. I can’t be complicit in my own erasure. As Audre Lorde wrote, “What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you […]
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