'They Can See Me': How gender-affirming care affects the lives of four IU students
By Haley Ryan , Sarah Parrish and Dominick Heyob | Dec 2, 2022 2:24 pmTransgender students access gender affirming care in a society stuck in the binary.
Transgender students access gender affirming care in a society stuck in the binary.
Despite pushback from IU, IGWC-UE members continue their union push
The suspect faces three felony charges: attempted murder, aggravated battery and criminal recklessness.
These incidents occurred both on-campus and off-campus.
The case has been turned over to the investigations unit.
The case is currently listed as open.
Police are unaware if the shootings were connected or not.
The cases occurred in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
Parrish has served as dean for more than eight years.
Bloomington Police Department officers took the suspect into custody Wednesday.
These days, physics is mostly code, especially if one works on big experiments like Erin does. Within the world of neutrino physics, Erin was most interested in accelerator neutrino physics.
Xan said there are a lot of transphobic questions baked into transgender care before and to be able to get a lot of transgender care. Questions like, “are you sure?” or “when did you know you were trans?” or “when did you know your gender?” and, Xan said, no one else is asked those questions.
In high school, Xan said they hung out with a bunch of people who are now all transitioning. Xan said they were all just very closeted trans folks hanging out together, of course, no one was out or knew anything about it.
Xan works as a Research Assistant in the Institute for Communication Research (ICR) at the Media School. They study avatar creation and avatar embodiment for transgender, nonbinary, and gender diverse players.
Early in her transition, Erin kept a diary of actions that felt right without mentally assigning them a label. She says, "I think I made it a month, maybe a month and a half max before I kind of just gave up. It's like I've consistently wanted only female presentation and to be like, I, my mind keeps gravitating so strongly towards calling myself a woman that I think at this point, I'm fooling no one."
Elliot identifies as transmasculine, but isn't quite sure where he lands there. Right now, they are just focused on feeling as good as they can.
Xan began medically transitioning last November and had to learn how to inject themself. At the student health center, a nurse taught them how to inject, the process of switching the needles and measuring.
Elliot Wilson is a freshman who lives in the Collins Living-Learning Center, which they said is known for being very queer friendly. When they were first signing up for dorms, Elliot said they were so nervous trying to figure it out. He was nervous because he “still didn't even know how I identify gender wise, you know?”
Erin Ewart is a 5th year graduate student in the physics department who sought out IU because it has one of the biggest neutrino physics programs in the country. She began taking hormones through the IU Student Health Center in May 2020 after publically presenting as female for six months.
Dr. Laura Knudson is the chair of the gender affirming care team at the IU Student Health Center, which offers hormone therapy, initiation and maintenance, and gender affirming mental health services. For Knudson, gender affirming care is creating a space where people of all genders feel safe, welcomed and affirmed.