Wilkes University President Greg Cant, right, watches as students in the school’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance raise a flag marking International Transgender Day of Visibility Thursday morning in the campus Fenner Quadrangle.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
Personal stories of pain and fear featured at Transgender Visibility Day event
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Henry Jurgiewicz, second from right, talks of the bullying, suicidal thoughts and fears for his own safety growing up feeling “unfinished” in his birth gender.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
WILKES-BARRE — Henry Jurgiewicz spoke emotionally of feeling out of place at an early age, suicidal thoughts by the age of four, school bullying for years and a lingering fear for his well-being in a world that seems to becoming less accepting thanks to new laws targeting transgender people.
“I am transgender,” he said in remarks offered before Wilkes University raised a transgender flag on the Fenner Quadrangle Thursday morning, marking International Transgender Day of Visibility. Born two weeks premature, he came to believe “I wasn’t done. I looked fine on the outside, but I was a mess on the inside.”
“Transvisibility,” Jurgiewicz said, is more important now, thanks to states proposing or passing laws activists say marginalize the LGBTQ community. He singled out Florida’s recent passage of the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law forbidding instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.
While many may think that’s too young for children to be taught about such matters, Jurgiewicz noted he was so confused by his gender identity at an early age that by the age of four he was having suicidal thoughts. “As a child I felt bullied,” he said. “As an adult I am still afraid.”
He cited a long list of transgender people who have contributed to society in sports, science, computers and medicine. “International Transgender Visibility Day is about celebrating who we are. We are co-workers. We are friends. We are strangers you pass every day and don’t even know.
“We don’t want to win or dominate in this world,” he added. “We want to be safe.”
Associate Professor Helen Davis, adviser for Wilkes Gender and Sexuality Alliance which sponsored the flag raising, said the number of transgender people being killed in the country has been increasing in recent years. She argued many of the laws being passed or being proposed are ill-defined and open to broad interpretation and confusion, and said they are “due to misinformation and misunderstanding” of the issue.
Wilkes President Greg Cant said the laws and changes are meant “to drive a wedge between communities. We take the opposite approach.
“We need to support people as they grow into who they are.”
Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish