During his first hour in office, after pledging to “Drill, baby, drill,” begin deportations immediately and “Forge a society that is colorblind”—ignoring the fact that deportation policies are anything but colorblind—President Trump announced that the official policy of the United States government is that there are only two genders: male and female.
While those who stood behind and around Donald Trump as he made these statements cheered him on and offered standing ovations, many of the students I work with in my day job on a college campus wallowed in sadness and disbelief.
As someone who exclusively uses they/them pronouns and identifies as gender nonbinary, Mitchell Foster wasn’t at all thrilled with Trump’s rhetoric on his first day in office.
“Transgender and nonbinary people have been around for thousands of years,” Foster said. “We’re a resilient people and we’re not disappearing just because Trump said so.”
Foster grew up going to Catholic school in the Philippines and struggled to relate to some of the other boys. “I remember being six years old, playing pretend, and I would always choose the female characters,” Foster recalled. “In the Catholic school there was a stark difference between the things boys were allowed to do and the things girls were not allowed to do. The boys were rowdy and got dirty all the time. I preferred playing with the girls.”
Foster recalls confiding to an aunt about a crush while in first grade and being quickly redirected. “All the girls in my class had a crush on a certain boy and I did, too,” Foster said. “When I told my aunt, she said, ‘What do you mean you have a crush on a boy?’ I didn’t know it wasn’t allowed. I felt ashamed and embarrassed about it.”
It wasn’t until Foster was in their early 20s taking critical race theory and feminist studies classes in the United States that Foster found the language and the context to understand themself. “I had never come out as gay or lesbian, but I knew something was different,” Foster said. “One day I was sitting on a bench doing my class readings and then it clicked for me. I was like, ‘OK, I’m gender nonbinary.’”
Foster has never experienced body dysmorphia, but lights up while describing the refreshing and radical act of staying true to themself.
“Some days I might feel more feminine, like someone who uses she/her pronouns, and some days I might feel more masculine, but ‘they’ is all encompassing,” Foster said. “If by being me in my nonbinary identity, I make a small impact and pave the path for another person to do the same, then I’m happy.”
If the Trump administration makes threats of nonbinary identity denial a reality by ignoring the gender-identity spectrum, Foster is ready to cope.
“I’ll do what I need to do to get by,” Foster said. “If an ID has an ‘M’ on it or I don’t have access to a gender-inclusive bathroom, I reflect on how I might appear that day. If I look more feminine, I’ll use the women’s room. If I look more masculine, I’ll use the guys’ room.”
While these things can be taken for granted by cis-gendered people—people whose gender identity matches their appearance and their assigned sex—Foster refuses to be bogged down by this.
“I know who I am,” Foster said. “That’s what matters.”
Justin Cole hasn’t met Mitchell Foster just yet, but chances are that’s about to change. Cole, a dancer, teacher and parent, volunteered to teach and perform a community dance to launch Transgender Day(s) of Visibility in downtown Lafayette this week. The Contra Costa County city has become a hotspot for allies from across Alameda and Contra Costa counties to counter the messaging of a handful of anti-trans protesters who appear each spring across from multiple schools in the district.
“A major component of our mission and values is inclusivity,” Cole said. “Dance is a universal uniting gift to everyone.”
Cole vaguely remembers what it was like in the phase of his life when he was afraid to show up as his true, authentic self. “I used to be ashamed and afraid to openly talk about having a husband, especially to my students,” Cole said.
However, that all changed when he became a parent after adopting a son. “That’s when I truly owned who I was,” Cole said. “Today I can just say that Brian is my husband if one of my dancers asks me who he is. I can’t say that’s 100% true in every case. Sometimes Brian is still my roommate when I feel like I need to be cautious.”
But all in all Cole is much more unapologetic about who he is today—a gay man in his 50s who in addition to being a dad and a husband is committed to bringing joy to the world through dance. To Cole, dancing his way through Transgender Day(s) of Visibility while sporting the colors of the Transgender flag is not only an act of allyship, but also an act of resistance.
“You can’t really argue with dance,” Cole said. “You can feel happiness, sadness, be uplifted or moved. You don’t have to agree with it. But it usually makes you feel something. That is the point.”
