A Fragile Coalition: The Impact of Anti-DEI Legislation on University-Transgender Community Relations

• In Event: 20811 - Who's Afraid of DEI?: New Questions and New Realities

Abstract

Denton, TX, a small, 3-college city on the outskirts of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex has become one of the sites of the conflict over transgender rights in Texas. Transgender Dentonites---too "stubbornly Texan" to refuse to "stand their ground," as many describe it---refuse to give ground to conservatives trying to claim the city, but anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion legislation has cut one of the major resource hubs for a college town: university DEI centers. This paper examines how anti-DEI legislative efforts served both to strip transgender people of material resources and to complicate the coalition between higher education and queer locals that many local transgender activists had struggled to build for years. And yet, even as many mourn the closing of these centers, stories of discrimination from nonwhite students at the University of North Texas (UNT) and Texas Women’s University (TWU) show that the safe spaces many students describe may not have been safe for everyone.

Author

• Kieran L Turner, Rice University