For the first time on Monday, Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton all held flag raising ceremonies for Transgender Day of Visibility. Created in 2010, the annual observation celebrates the lives and contributions of transgender people and draws attention to the discrimination the community faces.
Corinne Goodwin, Chair of the Eastern PA Transgender Equity Project, explained that being visible as a community can help to break the stigma surrounding its members.
“We’ve always known that we had to be visible because when you’re visible and you’re telling your stories, you create empathy. Most of us live very very very mundane lives, but we know that when people see us and people hear us, we’ll create empathy that will allow us to move forward and gain the protections under law that we deserve.”
Those protections don’t exist in many places around the U.S., and speakers at the event emphasized that existing protections are being threatened by recent executive orders and legislative proposals.
One of those pieces of legislation is PA Senate Bill 9, otherwise known as the Save Women’s Sports Act, which would restrict trans students from participating in school sports statewide. Speakers like Brenig Ghorm, a volunteer with the Trans Equity Project, called on event attendees to contact their legislators and urge them to oppose legislation of this kind.
“We’re being talked about more than ever. We’re being seen more than ever, and we’re being targeted in a big way because of that.”
The ceremonies concluded with the raising of the transgender pride flag alongside the city, state, and American flags. Ghorm said he was leaving the event with a continued dedication to visibility.
“Visibility is about showing somebody that we’re not scary, we’re not a threat, and we’re just regular people who are still worth knowing.”
