By T’Neil Gooden
On March 27, students gathered in the Tanger Auditorium Library to hear from panelists who had much to say about trans rights and trans-affirming care. The panel was hosted in collaboration with The Wolfe Institute, the Women’s and Gender Studies program, The Women’s Center, the Brooklyn College chapter of the Professional Staff Congress, the LGBTQ+ Resource Center, and We Stand Against Hate at BC.
The panelists consisted of Dr. Stephanie Bonvissuto, a transgender adjunct assistant professor in Women and Gender Studies at Hunter College; Elisa Crespo, the executive director of Stonewall Community Foundation, also a transgender woman; and Dr. Janet Johnson, the 2023-25 Endowed Chair in Women’s and Gender Studies at BC.
“If healthcare should be available to all, it is worth our time to interrogate what that can and should mean for transformative and transgressive gender identities,” Dr. Bonvissuto told the audience. “For instance, the reducing of pain and suffering and how that correlates to trans-affirming, psychological, and medical interventions. This is because trans-affirming is another way of saying life-saving.”
Before hearing from the panelist members, Bonvissuto spoke to students about the lack of trans care within the healthcare system and how that impacts people who are transgender both internally and externally.
“To be clear, I’m not referring to the ability to silently pass here, but rather the capacity to be oneself out loud. The trans community’s high rate of suicidal ideation is well-known and documented.”
Before ending her speech to bring in the panelists, Crespo and Johnson, Bonvissuto dedicated this talk to those who have come before her.
“We must move forward into the future without forgetting all the members of our community’s past, whose light and strength and vulnerability have shown and continue to show a way through the darkness,” Bonvissuto said. “It is for that reason that I wish to dedicate today’s panel discussion to all who have gone before us, including and especially Brooklyn College’s own Khalifa Mohammed.”
Khalifa Mohammed (they/them) was a trans student at BC and an advocate for trans rights before they passed away in the first week of March 2025. Bonvissuto wanted this discussion to bring attention to those fighting for trans liberation.
This discussion featured Kai Shappley, an eleven-year-old transgender child who has been fighting for transgender rights since she was five years old. Two videos were shown to students about the life that Shappley had to live in Texas as a transgender child. Since then, she has moved to upstate New York with her family.
According to Vice Media, Shappley and many transgender children are living in fear that they will be taken away from their parents because the state of Texas is policing trans children’s every move. This is a result of Gov. Greg Abbott’s demand that “gender-affirming care provided to minors is tantamount to child abuse.”
Despite these orders, Shappley has the following model that she and her family live by: “There are more people with us than are with them. And you need to remember that it’s my job to […] Worry, and it’s my job to tell my story,” Kai and Kimberly Shappley, the mother of Kai, said.
The panelists followed these two videos by sharing their lives and thoughts on trans-affirming care in today’s America. Elisa Crespo touched upon how the Stonewall Community Foundation provided an act that helped trans individuals within the tri-state area.
“[Stonewall Community Foundation is] one of the elite statewide advocacy organizations that really pounded the pavement in 2016 to make New York a sanctuary for gender-affirming care,” Crespo said. “We helped pass what was called the Safe Haven for Trans Youth and Families Act, which was a big deal.”
Janet Johnson followed Crespo, explaining the research she has done while being an advocate for trans rights and trans-affirming care.
“I’ve been thinking about how we fight [for trans-affirming care]. And it’s not simple. I’ve been teaching up a storm, clarifying in my classes and to everyone I talk to that science is clear and sex is not binary,” Johnson told the audience. “I’ve been teaching about the variety of gender systems that have existed across the world as long as we have recorded history.”
Afterward, Crespo and Johnson were able to share some insight into the lives and research they have done for trans-affirming care. The floor was open for questions, with Dr. Bonvissuto leading the way.
Bonvissuto asked the panelists if these series of actions against trans people within how the government reflects what has been referenced in Nazi, Germany during the 1930s and 40s.
“I don’t know, like detention centers, like we’re rounded up and detained and imprisoned or something because of our identity. That feels like where we may be,” Crespo told the audience. “But I think it’s important for us to fight back and to reclaim our power and despite the scariness and the reality of where we are, we have to find it within ourselves to be brave because the alternative is unacceptable in my opinion, which is at the risk of being silenced your entire identity and existence being eliminated.”
Johnson followed Crespo’s comment by saying, “It’s terrifying. I don’t mean to suggest that it’s not, but I do think that maybe there’s a way out of this if we…keep, you know, talking and loving and being compassionate and speaking with other people about these issues in the way that Kai just does so beautifully.”
Crespo and Johnson both agreed that finding and divulging in positive engagement is something that will help individuals get past the times we are in today and help the trans members of our communities.
“We must all name our fears, or I hope we can try to name our fears. This is terrifying. This is all terrifying for all of us, and we become conscious of our own stuff through meditation therapy, if we can afford it, so that we can be present to ourselves and to others, especially to our children and young people,” Johnson said. “Then I ask us to choose love and pleasure and hope and knowing that these two can be infectious.”
Students who are interested in learning more about trans-affirming care can go to the LGBTQ+ Resource Center in the Student Center.