An Ohio University event will provide an opportunity for students to have a conversation about how transgender individuals can embrace their appearance and individuality in a safe and supportive environment.
Dine-n-Discuss will be co-hosted by the LGBT Center and other organizations that are hosting events during “Love Yourself Week,” the five-day series of events promoting self-esteem and body positivity.
The event will be held Thursday at noon to discuss problems concerning body image in the transgender community. The discussion will be led by delfin bautista, the director of the LGBT Center. Participants are encouraged to bring their own lunch.
bautista, who uses they/them pronouns and the lowercase spelling of their name, said the conversation will cover various topics, including media representation of people who are transgender.
“One of the things I want to touch on is the visibility of trans people in the media, folks like Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox,” bautista said. “It’s great because it’s increased visibility for the community. At the same time, though, it has led to disconnect in the way that they have now set the bar and now all trans woman have to look like Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox, all trans men have to look like Chaz Bono.”
For some people, bautista said, looking like celebrities that are transgender is a goal, but there are many people who are transgender who do not identify or aspire to be like them.
A common circumstance that occurs with individuals who identify as trans is a situation called gender dysphoria, Jasper Shell, a senior studying specialized studies with a focus on music composition in film, said.
“Dysphoria is the feeling of your inner self not matching your outer self,” Shell said.
According to bautista, problems surrounding body image have tended to focus on a particular group of women without regard for other individuals.
“We know that many different communities experience body image and body positivity dynamics,” bautista said. “So (we are) wanting to expand the conversation (about) how these dynamics harm many different groups of people, as well as how people from different backgrounds and different identity groups are finding ways to combat them.”
Dr. M. Geneva Murray, director of the Women’s Center, said she hopes the union between different organizations will promote a stronger encouragement of diversity on campus.
“This is the first year that the Women’s Center, the Women’s Panhellenic Association and the Positivity Project have come together to create campus-wide programming that’s hopefully reaching diverse populations around campus,” Murray said. “When it comes to the body-positive movement, I think that’s an area in which we still don’t have a lot of discussion about trans identities, and that’s why it’s so important for us to incorporate how body positivity plays out in different communities.”
