During common hour in the HUB on Thursday, March 26, I heard a chant: “Trans justice now!” This chant, and the protest that ignited this chant, were meant to shed some light on the ongoing discrimination against transgender people, especially discrimination in public bathrooms. If this were the only thing that the protests brought up, however, I would not be writing an editorial on the protests. What made these protests the subject of my editorial was that, in the process of advocating for transgender rights, the protests (most notably a couple of posters on campus related to the transgender protests) came across as hostile to cisgender people.

I have seen at least two signs which show that cisgender people were the target of wrath in the transgender protest. One sign said “trans comfort > cis comfort.” A second sign said that, “Bathrooms aren’t just for cis people” (with cis underlined). What in particular have cisgender people done to deserve the wrath of transgender people, especially when most past discrimination has frankly been caused by white male political leaders? I would appreciate it if someone is able to give an answer to this question.

After all, it was not like the transgender movement needed to attack cisgender people in order to make their message known. They shouldn’t have felt the need to say that “bathrooms aren’t just for cis people” any more than they needed to emphasize that “bathrooms aren’t just for males, females, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, etc.” If they simply said that “bathrooms are for all people,” the reception to the transgender protest would be much more positive than what is given by this editorial.

There was another problem with the transgender movement on March 26: it really missed the point of the gender rights movement that this transgender movement should at least in theory be a part of. The movement is intended to be welcoming of all people—males, females, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender people, cisgender people, queers, and people of other gender identities that I failed to mention. However, the intention of equality for all, regardless of sexual identity, did not seem to be the intention of the anti-cisgender posters from the transgender protest. This is a shame. What could have been a big opportunity to make a powerful statement about the rights of all people, regardless of sexual orientation, turned into a group of transgender supporters targeting cisgender people.

In light of the nasty posters, it is worthwhile to support two groups of people: transgender rights supporters who did not support the hateful cisgender messages, and of course cisgender people.

The only people who should be criticized here are the people who made the anti-cisgender posters, and those who supported the messages of those posters. Those who fall into this group owe an apology to anyone on campus who identifies themselves as cisgender. The posters which were projected an anti-cisgender sentiment were offensive and hurtful. I hope to never again see such hatred directed at a particular group of people.