While watching the film “Major!”, there were many new things I learned about the transgender community, especially transgender people of color. A generalized thing I learned was that the United Nations considers more than 15 days of solitary confinement to be torture, yet our prison system uses it in excess all the time. Solitary confinement is also used for a lot of transgender people in prison as a form of oppression but can be excused as a necessary safety measure for transgender people’s own safety. I thought that it was really sad to hear about how additionally horrible a lot of transgender people’s prison experiences are. Being the only transgender person in a prison, and having to deal with harassment, sexual abuse from inmates and guards, and being placed in solitary confinement are incredibly harsh experiences that many transgender people face.
Something that the film left me wondering was what can I be doing in my life to advocate more for transgender people? I fell like the film showed a lot of points where society is flawed and oppresses transgender people, and I have been trying to think about what I can be doing to help counter this oppression. The fact that it is still hard for transgender people to get jobs because they can be discriminated against or fired has led to the criminalization of transgender people because some end up having to resort to illegal means in order to survive. After thinking about it, I feel like the biggest thing to be done would be to try to make political change ensuring non-discrimination rights for transgender people in the workplace.
~BZ