The protest preceding Cherise Trump’s speech at the Marano Campus Center auditorium did more to hurt the trans community than it did to protect them. 

At 6 p.m. on April 5, the area near the auditorium hosted more students standing idle and making noise than its usual scene of brisk walkers and bored tablers. They were there in protest of one person speaking: Cherise Trump, executive director of Speech First, with no relation to the former president. 

Trump marketed her speech in support of free speech, but her actions point to her advocacy being targeted to a certain type of speech. Speech First focuses on proving the conservative argument that higher education is censoring conservative thought. Trump, at least according to her Twitter account, treats diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs as dog whistles for trans people intimidating conservatives from vocalizing transphobia. One should not miss the irony of Trump using the vague shield of “free speech” as an argument against dog whistles. 

By attempting to boo her away from speaking, the protest only legitimized any image of regression Trump wanted to paint diversity and tolerance initiatives with. The last thing the trans community needs is being labeled as sensitive and strict. For many, if not most trans students, it is already difficult to advocate for one’s agency in a majority-cisgender campus. There is a special sort of difficulty for nonbinary students. Convincing peers and professors to respect one’s pronouns is another leap that can feel impossible. 

Just as much as Trump has nowhere near the political clout as other professional instigators, SUNY Oswego has nowhere near the reputation for Trump’s speech to necessarily change opinions. Her official Twitter made no mention of the Oswego visit afterward despite the protest seemingly being a perfect example of the topic she claims to fight for. 

The protest assured trans students that they have a community of allies, but it also ensured transphobic people that they can point to SUNY Oswego as a scene where trans people “shut down” conservative thought. Respectability politics is not the way to progress, but neither is, say, “disrespectability politics.” If we want to preserve the progress we have made in trans visibility and acceptance, we should not ruin it by legitimizing the fear-mongering of transphobic rhetoric. 

To put it best, movements need not only “soldiers” to actively advocate, but also “spies” to observe and communicate with the other side. Instead of pretending to be soldiers as a means to put “activist” on an empty resumé, we need more spies who can exhibit maturity and let transphobes prove themselves wrong.

Photo by: Oriel Frankie Ashcroft via Pexels