How His Visit Changed Me

I was checking my inbox, when I found an e-mail announcing a workshop called “What Happened to the T in LGBT”, it didn’t mean much to me, of course I was going to attend since it’s one of Meem activities and a foreign person was being hosted. It was only a couple of days ago when we were having a discussion about transgender and queer people, and how Meem should work more on including their issues. I remember getting lost in that conversation, my ideas concerning gender and queer theory were blur and I couldn’t relate to any of these issues, I knew that if I were to think about it, it will confuse me even more.
And then it was Friday, the day I met Sinan, the feminist trans-guy who was here for the workshop I read about.
Hearing him talk about gender in general, his own experience with figuring out his gender identity, queer theory and the way he relates to it, and how he came to identify as a feminist, it changed me. Everything was suddenly clear to me, and another flow of thoughts came rushing, thoughts that helped me understand a bit more my own gender identity, but more importantly made me realize what it really means to be inclusive of all LGBTQ issues, and not leaving behind any of them. His passion, his understanding of the cause, his perspective… Although I can’t explain what exactly changed in my way of viewing things, I know it made a huge shift. They say that there are certain people who come into your life and inspire you in a way that changes you, I was inspired.

~Ran~