The Contradictions of Being Tolerated
When your employer celebrates Pride, but bans transition-related healthcare on religious grounds
For over ten years I have taught at the Jesuit university from which I also received my Master’s degree and my PhD. I’ve been a student here, a postdoctoral researcher here, a part-time adjunct instructor, and now I’m a full-time professor. My relationship to the school runs deep. So too do my ambivalences, particularly in a month like Pride month, when it’s most clear to me that my existence as a transgender faculty member is contradictory and fraught.
Today I entered the university’s information commons (a computer lab and studying area connected to the library) to find this display celebrating transgender, nonbinary, and intersex authors:
I wish I could feel buffeted and supported by these displays, but all they do is fill me with bitterness. It makes me think of the email I received from the employee benefits department several years ago, when I inquired about whether the university’s health insurance covered transition-related care. I was told the university follows the lead of the Catholic Church, and therefore chooses not to support any transition-related surgeries, hormones, or doctor’s visits, just as it refuses to pay for birth control.
