Juniper Danielson, a studentat Texas A&M University, said the place has felt progressively unwelcoming to her and others in the LGBTQIA+ community. That’s at least in part because the college will stop providing her and others with gender-affirming care next month, another nail in the coffin for inclusivityat Texas A&M.
The Human Rights Campaign calls gender-affirming care life-saving for transgender people. It includes a range of services including medical care, mental health treatment and social services.
Last semester, the right-wing publication Texas Scorecard published a couple of articles about the university’s “wokeness,” including criticisms about A&M’s gender-affirming care services. The articles stirred up a reaction, and emails about it were sent to the university’s board of regents and other university officials.
Vanessa Dickerson is a junior at the A&M and president of Transcend, a student-led organization meant to help support and connect transgender and gender non-conforming people in the area. She said she felt the university folded under pressure brought on by the Texas Scorecard articles. However, the university says it’s doing away with gender-affirming care because of a lack of resources.
“The administration, along with health officials on campus, made the decision to streamline services to focus mainly on primary care,” the university said in an emailed statement to the Observer. “The dec ision was based on several factors, including healthcare providers needing to effectively manage the resources they have while ensuring the highest quality of care for all patients.”
“That feeling of being welcome, it’s slightly started to slip.” – Bri McCain, Texas A&M student
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Dickerson said Transcend is still working on a response and the organization is hoping to arrange for care and funding for students who need this treatment. “Essentially, we’re going through the process of reorganizing our resources,” Dickerson said. “Fundamentally, Transcend, the organization we represent, is a resources organization meant to help transgender Aggies find safe, effective medical care, resources on campus, things to that effect. So, essentially, we’re just changing the route by which we do so.”
Danielson, a Transcend officer, said before all this happened she just felt OK about the university in terms of its inclusivity. Things have slowly changed at A&M for the worse. At the turn of the year, Senate Bill 17 went into effect, which banned diversity, equity and inclusion offices at colleges and universities. This led A&M to do away with its Pride Center. The center has since been replaced by a student life office.
Before that, the school stopped organizing and running a student-led drag show on campus called Draggieland. The event was taken up by other student organizations who continue to put it on today.
Bri McCain, a senior at the university, said she initially felt welcomed there. That was until she joined a student organization that wasn’t really inclusive of LGBTQIA+ individuals. “I didn’t know that until I came out and it was very much so expressed with them backing me into corners and situations I couldn’t get out of, that I wasn’t welcomed,” McCain said. She eventually found a community that would accept her as she is through the Pride Center before the center was shut down. “That feeling of being welcome, it’s slightly started to slip,” McCain said.
It appears that resources are being taken away from the university’s LGBTQIA+ community one by one. “There’s been a slow and systematic process at A&M of removing access and removing representation for queer and transgender students,” Dickerson said.
The university’s Queer Empowerment Council put out a statement about the college’s move and started a petition to reverse it. “Removing access to gender-affirming care through [University Health Services] leaves students with very few options to find care, especially for students who are already struggling with the cost of education itself,” the council’s statement said. “One month is not nearly enough time for students to find another provider.”
Since attending A&M, McCain, Dickerson and Danielson have become Aggies at heart. But the recent change by the university has shaken their confidence in their school. “Up until recently, I had great pride in my school,” McCain said. “But it’s sad to see when that progress is erased, and so it’s harder and harder to defend a university that I know and love.”