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Hello all,
My name is Bree Taylor, she/her. I am the founder and executive director of Trans Unity Coalition, a national organizational umbrella consisting of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit as well as multiple advocacy affiliates around the country. I am reaching out following recent demands made by the U.S. Department of Education under direction of President Donald J. Trump to compel SJSU leadership to discriminate against a former transgender athlete of yours.
I am writing this letter to implore you not to comply with this discrimination, both on grounds of the irreparable damage it would bring, and for the injustice that it is.
But I first wanted to say why I want to say this. I am from San Jose. I do not currently live in California. I remember all the little things. I miss many of them: the Ranch 99’s everywhere, all the corner boba shops, Mission Peak challenging you from the distance. But perhaps the values we shared, the most.
A couple years ago, I moved to the Midwest, resettled, and incidentally founded Trans Unity Coalition. This was just before the national elections, at a time when I wanted to brace a widely-growing national trans community for a hypothetical worst our country could possibly see. Well, it wasn’t hypothetical. And for so many days in that time, it has been a constant battle for millions of people right here in our country. A battle just to exist like anyone else, before this insanity.
In my current role, I travel to as many states as I can and engage with our community, our allies, the undecided, and our opponents. I listen, I take in, and I do my best to understand. I am a natural devil’s advocate, and I always give 100% to listen to all sides of any problem. I have a clear understanding of each side of this argument.
But I cannot in good conscious explain the wanton cruelty towards such a tiny percentage of people, beyond a convenient political scapegoat to consolidate power, so readily convenient that our own American values of equality and justice for all are disregarded as exceptions to be declared virtuous by a few.
Just yesterday, a number of demands were sent to SJSU where if maybe in complete isolation, one could limit its scope to the subject of the integrity of sports. But it was never about sports for this administration. It was about subjugation: oppression in a state where millions of other Americans look to for hope of something much better. I cannot emphasize this enough: the goal was always crushing the lasting hope of millions that there is more to America than just depravity from all that they know.
Here are the demand-by-demand reasons why you must not comply with these injustices:
1) SJSU is a renowned higher education institution. The very first demand asked by President Trump requires the university accept their incorrect binary definition of sex. Intersex Americans are being actively targeted and harmed as states legislatures formally adopt an otherwise non-legally binding executive order issued to reduce sex to simply male and female. We clearly know that sex is not simply XX and XY, ask any SJSU Bio undergrad currently in their spring semester. A leading university such as SJSU dismissing and permitting redefinition from actual scientific fact lowers all standards for our American educational system with lasting academic and reputational consequences both home and abroad.
2) The second demand referring to Title IX aims to rewrite how it currently applies. Transgender people have been protected from discrimination under Title IX as a form of interpretation, primarily as demonstrated under Presidents Obama and Biden. The reversed application of Title IX is similarly up for interpretation, but as stated in the first demand, the administration is requesting that you to abide by a limited definition of sex in advance, and then consequently applying this to Title IX as the first pledge of loyalty. This does not have to be the case, unless you affirmatively opt into it. If you do, it further demoralizes others from ever challenging conservative reinterpretations of this federal law, particularly for women’s rights.
3) This sweeping demand is effectively asking that you publicly promise to sever ties with any institution, donor, business, partner, even an SJSU student club that supports the transgender community, or anything else they deem to qualify as disobeying their demands set here. The Northern California chapter of my profit, for example, would never be able to formally provide lifesaving resources to vulnerable students on your campus. Make no mistake about this: nonprofits, community centers, even housing shelters for children, have all seen swift, community-shocking closures around the country under this strategy. This cannot be the epicenter of destruction for my home in the Bay Area.
4 and 5) Finally, and the logistical salt on the wound aside, these demands are essentially asking you to publicly advocate on behalf of the Trump Administration to every current or prior athlete and athletic graduate, that SJSU condones discrimination against their athletes. I have seen so many MAGA-aligned opponents claim that women’s sports is about empowering women. It’s their basis of the argument why women who are trans should be prohibited from that same equity. What message of empowerment—to women everywhere—exists when we tell people their permission to feel personal strength is derived from the abusive, predatory hands Trump, of all people? How does catering to this zero-sum redirection actually attack longstanding patriarchy, correct the gender wage gap, or endorse true gender equality in America?
I have spoken to thousands of trans people all over the United States. Collectively, we understand the fallout of any institution that kneels to these orders. I would never have imagined it from growing up in the little southeast tip of the gentle Bay Area waters, but America is watching, and even thousands of miles away as I type this: we are counting on you to make the right decision. Take a stand with progress, take a stand with justice. Or please, take a stand with me.
Please.
Signed respectfully,
Bree Taylor, of Trans Unity Coalition
On behalf of 146 transgender civilians who can no longer sign again,
And many more still hopeful that our country does the right thing.
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