{"id":1179,"date":"2025-04-09T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/?p=1179"},"modified":"2025-09-12T13:39:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T17:39:16","slug":"transgender-day-of-visibility-at-pellissippi-state-a-respite-from-the-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/09\/transgender-day-of-visibility-at-pellissippi-state-a-respite-from-the-madness\/","title":{"rendered":"Transgender Day of Visibility at Pellissippi State: A Respite from the Madness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
By Patrick Dobyns, Editor<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"TDOV
A past rally for Transgender Day of Visibility 2023 in Naarm (Melbourne). | Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The last day of March marked the International Transgender Day of Visibility. So, to celebrate this event and kick off National Poetry Month,  English Professor Deborah Bernhardt organized a small poetry read\/lunch event on Hardin Valley campus. Or, at least, she would<\/em> have, if the day had not also been the first day of the spring rain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s try that again, shall we?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the second of April, Professor Bernhardt hosted a small event to celebrate a belated Trans Day of Visibility and kick off National Poetry Month. With no advertisement save for a notice  that was  sent out to staff,  we managed to find our way there easily enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I walked up to members of the Pride Club hanging up a few Transgender flags from the trees at the Bagwell Building\u2019s Patio, and an IKEA Bl\u00e5haj resting on a table. Two books were also provided for those who didn\u2019t have any poetry to read themselves: We Want it All, an Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics<\/em>, edited by Andrea Abi-Karam and Kay Gabriel, and Troubling the Line, Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics<\/em>, edited by T.C. Tolbert and Trace Peterson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There wasn\u2019t much to mark the event\u2019s beginning at eleven, aside from a few people showing up, including one person that brought a sandwich bag filled with free stickers for almost every LGBTQ+ group, which I happily grabbed from. A few minutes later, Prof. Bernhardt opened a laptop and played a pre-recorded video of a transgender poetry reading; this event was largely a social gathering more than anything else\u2014small and simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some miscellaneous noteworthy occurrences included a debate on where exactly to place the Bl\u00e5haj, the hanging of a Cura\u00e7ao flag leftover from another event, and a stiff breeze scattering the aforementioned stickers that were  laid out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it might seem a shame that the event had not been more thoroughly advertised, I think that it ultimately benefited from the small attendance; it felt more intimate  and lighthearted than most larger events, and the overall vibe was one of relaxation. Even more importantly, it exposed myself and others to the wealth of trans literature that exists, which often gets overlooked; I will definitely be picking up those books again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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