Wind gusts in Wilkes-Barre and rain in Scranton didn’t stop groups from celebrating International Transgender Day of Visibility on Friday. A university in Luzerne County has now made it a tradition to honor the occasion while several groups gathered in downtown Scranton to celebrate with music.
Representatives and students at Wilkes University gathered at Fenner Quadrangle for the second annual flag-raising ceremony on March 31, lifting the blue, pink and white-striped flag that represents transgender pride.
Members of the university’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance spoke alongside Wilkes President Dr. Alan Gregory Cant.
Alliance member and student Taylor Mattei addressed parents in the crowd. Supporting transgender children when they come out is integral to their well-being, he said.
“Maybe as a parent, you didn’t understand. You worry about them or maybe even say something hurtful you might regret. This doesn’t mean you failed as a parent,” Mattei said, “but it’s important that you try to accept them even if you don’t understand, even if they find out that’s not who they are in the end.”
Mattei hopes parents understand how much courage it takes for their children to come out to them. Part of visibility is vulnerability, he said.
“I sometimes feel like I put a target on my back, … but it’s better than hiding my truth and not encouraging others to embrace themselves,” he said, “because it encourages other people to come out and explore that on their own.
Dr. Helen Davis is the Wilkes faculty advisor for the school's Gender and Sexuality Alliance, a gender studies expert and the mother of a non-binary child. Cisgender allies – people who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth – must push back against anti-transgender rhetoric and acts of violence, she said.
“The numbers of trans people killed in our country continues to rise in alarming numbers, especially trans women of color,” she said, adding that a day observed later in the year is mournful. “We will continue to mark those lives every year on Nov. 20 during the Transgender Day of Remembrance.”
Over 300 transgender or gender-nonconforming people have been killed since the Human Rights Campaign began tracking fatalities in 2013. Black transgender women make up 63% of those deaths, according to HRC’s 2022 report.
President Cant said Wilkes University will continue to stand up for transgender people, even as states like Kentucky, Florida and Arkansas try to introduce laws that impact transgender youth.
“Politics is going to happen in the world, … but we hold onto the absolute truth that Wilkes will stand with who you are,” Cant said. “However you define yourself is how you’re welcomed and you will be supported.”
Scranton celebration
Later in the day, music rang out in downtown Scranton after volunteers set up tents to protect performers and their instruments from rain. Advocacy groups and community members held signs and banners while organizers and musicians took turns on a microphone.
Alec Walker-Serrano of NEPA Stands Up addressed the crowd on North Washington Avenue before musicians Polly Vinylchloryde, Michelle Pagán and "Astro" Jenny Davala performed.
“[Today] is about how much we love ourselves,” he said. “We’re here to stand up and be visible. This is about us, our passion, our creativity, our resilience as a community.”
Other groups that organized the Scranton event include Queer NEPA, Action Together NEPA, the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Wyoming Valley.
International Transgender Day of Visibility has been celebrated since 2009.
