Samantha Olson, Jocelyn Robles, Danay Diaz, Alex Canas

John Kubler
English 115
9 December 2014
Transgender Rights
Have you ever tried to imagine yourself as a completely different person? How
about imagining yourself as the opposite sex? What if you were trapped in the body of
the opposite sex? Well, that is potentially how transgender people feel as they are
growing up or throughout their lives. Our group, the Go Go Squeezers, focused our
project on how transgender youth are viewed and how they feel about themselves and
their environment. Danay Diaz was the editor of our video titled Transgender Youth
Project, Samantha Olson was the director, Alex Canas was the webmaster, and Jocelyn
Robles was the graphic designer.
Our society today is still a little shaky when it comes to topics that we arent
necessarily familiar with. We dont always know how to respond, and most of the time it
has a more negative outcome. When it comes to transgenders, people dont understand
what that means. I mean, before we looked into it in class, most of us didnt quite know
what transgender meant. Transgender is when the person has a different gender identity
than sex. For example, a person who looks at herself and behaves like a girl, but has male
genitalia.
Transgender youth are faced with rough circumstances and tough decisions.
Restrooms, locker rooms, and school sports teams become major issues that these
children are faced with. They are put in uncomfortable situations when it comes to locker

rooms especially. If the child is a girl but has male parts, she would be embarrassed or
put in danger if she were forced to change in the boys locker room. On our website there
is a powerful picture of a transgender looking at both bathroom signs. The girls restroom
says Get yelled at and the boys restroom says Get beat up. There is tons of
controversy regarding these children and their peers, but the way we see it, they should
be treated just like everyone else. They dont deserve to get made fun of or discriminated
against because of something they have no control over.
The bigger idea that we are trying to get across is that transgender people should
be respected and treated just as equally as everyone else in this world. They have the
same rights that we do and it is unfair to victimize them because they are just a little bit
different than what society says is normal.
Overall, we broke down our song into 8 sub-claims. The first lyric was I dont
want to be her, I just want to be little old me, shouldnt have to think, who I am suppose
to be today. Its clear that a transgender knows who they are and shouldnt be looked
down upon. They should have the right to express themselves without any judgment. The
second lyric, And what gives you the right, to tell me who I should be, who gave you
that right. No one has the right to tell them that they are wrong or are confused in what
they are doing. In Whats so bad about a boy who wants to wear a dress?, Ruth
Padawer mentions how, doctors were trying corrective therapy to extinguish a typical
gender behaviors. The goal was preventing children from becoming gay or transgender, a
term for those who feel they were born in the wrong body. Its not a illness that can be
easily fixed, its something they are born with. In I know you want the best, yeah only
good things for me, but you have to realize, I cant be all these things you project on me,

it shows that parents always try to look out whats best for their children, but it doesnt
always work out. As much as these parents want to nurture and defend what makes their
children unique and happy, they also fear it will expose their sons to rejection. Some have
switched schools, changed churches and even moved to try to shield their children
(Padawer.). Their children should be able to do things that makes them happy, even if
they might get hurt, their parents should be there supporting them. The fourth one is
Cause Im beautiful to me, doesnt that mean a thing. Even though they might be so
accepting of themselves, others dont accept that they are truly happy being the way they
are. The fifth one, I need that to be enough for you, need that to be enough for you,
cause its enough for me, its enough for me. A transgender child just wants their family
and society to see that if its enough for them to be accepting and proud of being who
they are, then they should as well. The six one, Am I suppose to give up everything I
am, just to make you happy, I thought I was the one you always wanted me to be, it turns
out Im just little old me, Im just little old me, and thats fine by me. In order to feel
accepted then they have to give up their own happiness to make others happy. Always
told to be yourself but how can they truly be themselves if being a transgender is not
accepting. In some cases, they dont have access to bathrooms because they have to use
the restroom based on the gender they born with. Which leads to discomfort and being
harassed and bullied in school restrooms when forced to use an assigned restroom
inconsistent with their gender identity (Brinker & Maza). But at the end they dont want
to be forced to cover up who they really are, because they feel completely fine with
themselves they way they are meant to be. The seventh quote is, Cause we are beautiful
no matter what they say, words cant bring us down oh no, we are beautiful in every

single way, words cant bring us down, oh no. No matter what any negative thing
someone may say, that shouldnt affect who they should be. Just to be content that the
person they are is enough and that its not wrong to believe that they are trapped. And
lastly So dont you bring me down, oh, today. Nothing will stop them from being who
they were truly meant to be in the first place. They accepted that they wont lose the
battle of being told on who they can be or not. And step by step they are trying to achieve
their rights, as its mentioned in Womens Colleges are on the Wrong Side of History on
Transgender Women, Transgender activists work to change the brutal policies that
keep trans women out of womens shelters, put trans women in mens prisons, make it
difficult or impossible for trans people to use public bathrooms, keep trans people from
having ID that reflects who we are, and allow healthcare providers, employers, teachers
and other authority figures to exclude us and deny our identities.
The graphic brochure was easy to see and read out of. It had a blue background
with colorful boxes in which the lyrics and interpretations were added on to. There were
2 lyric quotes in each page with a picture or two from our video, to get a sense in which
scene we incorporated the lyrics to. It was created the way it was, to make it easier for the
audience to see it.
The main purpose of this website is to analyze and explain transgender rights and
how they feel in society today. With many children, teens and adults seeing and hearing
many transgender people in the news, social media and anywhere in public, this site will
bring awareness to people who don't know much about transgender people and their
rights. This will bring awareness to parents, students, and who might be confused about
what somebody might be going through and help people realize that being transgender

isn't something terrible. The music video is trying to explain how being transgender is not
accepted overall, even if youre a transsexual boy or a transsexual girl. Judith Butler, a
philosopher and gender theorist, has worked and tried to understand gender. She wrote
an article named Performative Acts and Gender Constitution where she explains how
the body becomes its gender through a series of acts which are renewed, revised, and
consolidated through time." She explains gender is made up by the way someone portrays
oneself and how they act. In the song, the lyrics show how the person singing wants to be
herself and wont let other people words bring her down.
This may be the most controversial topic many people have argued for many
years. Recently, in some states, transgender people are able to choose the bathroom they
want to go into based on the gender they claim to be. Many people oppose this by arguing
that men will abuse this law and go into the female bathroom. Others argue that a
principal or the administrator of a school can see the difference between a lying boy and
transgender. They argue boys are not going to start dressing up as girls to just go into a
girl's bathroom.
I made my website interactive by putting videos in every single page, which will
send them to YouTube. The YouTube videos will give a brief summary which allow the
viewer to ponder and make connections to the current world problems. This allows the
viewer to make connections: text to text, text to oneself, and text to world. I also included
a survey to get the viewer to give their own opinion and a quiz to see if they actually read
the info graphics. I included info graphics that were simple and short and didnt have so
many statistics. I did this because I wanted the reader to not be bored by statistics and

really just get to the point of my argument: transgender people have been affected
negatively and we havent done enough to make them equal.

Works Cited
Cummings, Avi, and Dean Spade. "Women's Colleges Are on the Wrong Side of History
on Transgender Women." N.p., n.d. Web.
Brinker, Luke, and Carlos Maza. "15 Experts Debunk Right-Wing Transgender
Bathroom Myth." Media Matters for America. N.p., 20 Mar. 2014. Web.
Padawer, Ruth. "Whats So Bad About a Boy Who Wants to Wear a Dress?" The New
York Times. The New York Times, 11 Aug. 2012. Web.