LOCH SHELDRAKE, NY — An aptly timed panel at SUNY Sullivan on October 23 brought together transgender and non-gender conforming members of the community at a time when their rights might be at risk.

The panel, hosted by the Sullivan County Human Rights Commission (HRC) and Gender Equality New York (GENY), was called “Everything You Wanted To Know About Transgender, Non-binary, and Intersex People… But Were Afraid To Ask!” [sic]. Though it was planned before news began circulating about the matter, the event took place just days after a memo from the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a plan to roll back the loosening of gender definitions by former President Barack Obama’s administration.

“It is a very scary time for the gender-expansive community,” said Dayna Halprin, representing the Sullivan County HRC. “With some of the new legislation that’s going through, we are at risk of losing healthcare and housing. It is time for our allies and advocates to step up.”

“With some of the new legislation that’s going through, we are at risk of losing healthcare and housing. It is time for our allies and advocates to step up.”

The HHS memo announced the beginning of an effort to narrow the definition of gender to be specific to the genitals someone is born with. The move would require everyone—including people who don’t identify with their sexual identity at birth—to legally define themselves according to their genitalia at birth. The change would again complicate the bathroom and locker room issue as well as possibly impact healthcare, schooling and workplace discriminations.

The memo read: “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”

An estimated 1.4 million Americans identify with a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth. The department has not yet clarified what the change would mean for intersex people, who are born with male and female sex characteristics.

Transgender community advocate, board chair and executive director of Gender Equality New York, Juli Grey Owens, hosted the presentation, leading with a slideshow about the gender-expansive community. (Pictured below to the left is an example of a slide Owens showed). She also described the pain intersex people say they go through after having a gender assigned to them at birth and, often, undergoing surgery as an infant.

Using the Long Island Railroad as a metaphor for transitioning from one gender identity to another, Owens brought the audience on a trip from Penn Station in Manhattan to Montauk.

At the Jamaica Station stop, she said, “Some people, when they get off the train, they say, ‘Wow, Jamaica’s a really cool place, I feel good about it. I feel like this is where I belong.’”

Stopping at Jamaica in this case means that some people may choose to make some adjustments to their physical appearance, like binding—meaning to wrap their breasts to flatten them—but might not choose to chemically or surgically alter their body. Others may go a little farther down the line and begin to use hormones. Some people may “go all the way to Montauk” and choose to have surgery to match their biological sex with their gender identity.

“We’re not talking about specific boxes—box a, box b—we’re talking about a continuum where any of us can be at any part of this line at any point,” Owens said. “In many cases, a healthy gender transition may not include surgery or hormones… There is no right way and right time for gender transition.”

The panelists, sitting at a table ready to describe their experiences, exemplified this spectrum.

Episcopal priest Rebecca Drebert said after transitioning to a woman later in life, she has found acceptance with her family, but was asked to leave her church. Petra Simone Kraus, 61, who went by Simone for most of the evening, came out as a transwoman to her wife five years ago, and publicly only as she was getting ready to retire from a career as a stone fitter. She opened up about attempted suicide and taking on dangerous jobs in an attempt to hide from her identity.

“If I died, my wife would never know,” Kraus said.

Ash Hayes, who is non-gender conforming and uses the pronoun “they,” grew up a Jehovah’s Witness.

“I felt brainwashed,” they said. “When I turned 17, I started thinking outside of that box. At 18, I started talking to people outside of the religion… I hadn’t really experienced much of anything yet.” Today, Hayes is married and finds support from their mother and sisters, who were in the audience that night cheering them on. Best friends Rocco Reyes, a Navy veteran, and Faith Taryn Davies, a poet, also shared their stories.

Though the atmosphere outside of SUNY Sullivan has grown increasingly tense around the topic, inside the auditorium, people asked questions about terms, inquired about how to be better allies and shared support.

When a nervous young person in the crowd stood up to say they were questioning their own gender identity, the panelists comforted them. “You don’t have to be either,” Hayes said. “You don’t need to put a label [on]... if that’s what you’re feeling, you don’t owe an explanation to anyone else.”

“You don’t have to be either,” Hayes said. “You don’t need to put a label [on]... if that’s what you’re feeling, you don’t owe an explanation to anyone else.”

For Kraus, who used her real last name for the first time and spoke publicly about her experience for only the second time, that moment was worth opening up.

“I want to make it easier for the younger people,” Kraus said. “A lot of transgender people, we usually don’t want to be out there, we want to be stealth, kind of blend, and I noticed people like to ask questions and they want to ask… Ask me anything you want, so that this way, if it makes another transgender person’s life easier… that’s kind of like my little mission.”