Transgender Visibility at SMC
On Tuesday, Nov 15, Santa Monica College’s Pride Center kicked off Transgender Visibility Week with guest speaker Jacob Tobia.
On Tuesday, Nov 15, Santa Monica College’s Pride Center kicked off Transgender Visibility Week with guest speaker, Jacob Tobia: American LGBTQ+ rights activist, writer, producer, television host, and actor. Tobia was invited to SMC to read excerpts from their published memoir, “Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story” that talks about their personal experiences growing up as gender-queer.
Tobia moved many SMC students and faculty with their outspoken words, witty jokes, and light-hearted ways of conversing about the hardships that they have experienced being a member of the LGBTQ+ community.
Tobia said, “I need everyone to think about gender with a third-grade mind… Our adult minds are not useful when thinking about gender because our adult minds have already been made up … I don't think the way we come at gender and identity as adults serves us very well.”
Inviting the audience to radically shed their adult skin, Tobia reads three different fragments from “Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story”, discussing experiences from their childhood all the way up to their current adult life. Tobia reads the opening of their memoir that discusses their experience being so comfortable with their naked body: As a child they would urinate outside because they did not see any issue with a normal bodily function and reflected on how discomfort with their body was learned.
Tobia also read their book proposal that spoke about how identifying as non-binary and being transgender was extremely hard for them. The amount of people who did not view gender-queer individuals as part of the transgender community added to these difficulties.
Lastly, Tobia shared parts of their experience hiking in the Appalachian Mountains for two weeks with a group of their fellow students in college. There was no judgment, no thoughts on gender, no worries about looking too masculine or seeming too feminine, they had found gender freedom.
SMC librarian Bren Antrim is also a part of the non-binary community. Antrim shared their thoughts on having a gender-queer guest speaker at SMC.
“It means hope because I’m almost sixty and most of my life there was not anyone speaking that I could relate to on this issue,” Antrim said.
Gender Sex Alliance Club Vice President, AJ Sohrabi shared his thoughts on Tobia coming to SMC to speak on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community.
“Honestly I am really glad that we can have an opportunity like this at SMC because I am sure there are countless colleges in this country that would never recognize something like this.” Sohrabi said.
Tobia ended with an Q&A, followed by an invitation for anyone to share their own personal experiences being apart of the LGBTQ+ community.
