Around 40 students and community members rallied in front of the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library on Thursday afternoon to condemn anti-transgender legislation. The protest was organized by the newly formed student group TRANSformation, which launched on Tuesday in honor of the International Transgender Day of Visibility.
“Trans people have always been here … trans people will continue to be here,” TRANSformation organizer Levi Kim ’29 said in an interview with The Herald. “We will not be silent in the face of our attacks on our community.”
Kim said that he and his friends have experienced “a lack of community” among transgender people at Brown and across the country. He said that TRANSformation seeks to create a space for transgender students to come together and advocate for their community.
In his protest speech, Kim called out the 616 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in 2025, arguing that they are “targeting a community that already faces disproportionately high rates of violence and suicidality.” He referenced five bills introduced in Rhode Island this year that specifically target transgender students’ ability to participate in sports and access medical care.
“Instead of addressing affordability or climate change or literally anything else, they choose to regulate the freedom of trans and gender diverse people,” Kim said.
In an interview with The Herald, Kim added that students have a particular role in activism efforts given that a majority of anti-transgender legislation pertains to transgender youth.
“I think it’s essential that we are pushing back on so much of the trans hatred that’s coming from adults and really from a lot of the parents and the federal government,” he said. “We have the right to determine how we identify.”
Finn Tronnes ’28, an organizer with TRANSformation and speaker at the rally, emphasized the strength of the transgender community amid legislative attacks. As someone who grew up in the Midwest, Tronnes specifically called out Kansas’s new law invalidating transgender individuals’ driver’s licenses if they did not change back their genders on the documents.
“The more laws they try to try to erase our identities, the more ways we come up to reinvent ourselves and reimagine the world,” Tronnes said at the protest. “We resist by reminding politicians of the strength of our community, our resilience and our astonishing joy in trying times. We tell them that we’re not going anywhere.”
Tronnes argued that even though these laws are more prevalent in red states, “a threat to one trans community is a threat to every trans community.”
Currently, TRANSformation is circulating a petition against a bill passed by India’s parliament, amending the “Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act” to remove legal recognition for transgender people.
“Anti-trans legislation has been on the rise worldwide, and it’s essential that we maintain solidarity with global resistance struggles,” Kim said at the protest.
In a speech read on behalf of a transgender international student from India, who feared speaking at the protest on Thursday, Raya Gupta ’29 argued that the bill “strips trans people of their basic human rights.”
“This is not what democracy looks like,” she read.
Etta Robb ’26, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation R.I., closed out the speeches with a discussion of how the movement for transgender rights is intertwined with other liberation movements.
“Until we’ve got a system that is fundamentally free of capitalism and white supremacy, trans people will not be free,” Robb said.
For protest attendee Luce Allen ’29, Thursday’s rally was a way to “show solidarity” with the transgender community as well as “explore trans joy.” Allen added that they hope the new group will allow transgender students at Brown to connect and “find people who have shared similar trans experiences.”
“I’m still here. All of us are still here,” Allen said. “All of us here who are trans or allies have their own stories of resistance and liberation, and the fact that we’re all here today shows that we’re able to survive that and overcome that.”
Zarina Hamilton is a university news editor covering activism and affinity & identity. She is sophomore from near Baltimore, Maryland and is studying mechanical engineering. In her free time, you can find her reading, journaling, or doing the NYT mini crossword.
