Back in December, we wrote an article about the UW’s failure to protect a prospective athlete from a transphobic mob. In the two months since then, the University has remained silent. This raises serious concerns about the University’s commitment to the transgender community on campus.

In our original article we outlined the situation, so if you haven’t read that one yet, go do that first. We’ll link it here. In that article, we recommended that the university “Reaffirm that the prospective student is welcome and that the scholarship is still available to her or that it will be made available to her again, publicly condemn the doxing and harassment of a prospective student and her family, and that the UW express support for the transgender community by making tangible changes on campus.”

The UW administration has done none of this, instead choosing to remain silent. Their failure to take action reflects on their lack of dedication to the transgender community.

This is consistent with the wider trend in neoliberal institutions. Many drop their allyship as soon as it becomes mildly inconvenient, or serves to threaten their profits. Target, is a prime example of this, quickly folding last year after a transphobic mob demanded that the company get rid of pride merchandise. To this we ask: Did we really ever think that multinational corporations were going to be in our best interest? Maybe some people did. Which is very sad. Corporations and the government only care about the LGBTQ+ so long as we bring them profit. This superficial ‘allyship’ means nothing and is ultimately harmful to emancipatory struggles. All Target wants us to do is to consume more. When pride month outfits are made in fast fashion sweatshops, you know our system is fucked. 

The UW is no different. It touts itself as a so-called “progressive” institution but at the end of the day, puts profit over people. In UW’s case, silence to transphobia allowed them to please sports fans, donors, and anyone else with money to hand over to the university. Some of these fans have been tricked by sports media outlets, claiming to ‘protect women's sports.’ This couldn’t be farther from their intentions, as reactionary media continues to pump out transphobic rhetoric. Transphobic rhetoric like this only serves to escalate violence from individuals and the state, such violence was seen with the murder of Nex Benedict this month. All of this has real implications for the UW trans community.

The UW has had a long history of transphobia and state violence, stemming from its settler colonial origins. It took decades of popular uprisings, and threats to university profits for administration to make  concessions to LGBTQ+ students. UW’s current indifference to the trans community demonstrates their willingness to sell us out. The pursuit of profit and the constraints of the capitalist state have set UW on a course to return to its transphobic roots.

All of this leaves us questioning the future of UW’s position on the transgender community. With the two major political parties in the United States moving increasingly right-wing and a well funded reactionary mob producing abundant anti-trans propaganda, it is plausible that UW has predicted a continued right-wing shift in the American state apparatus. Perhaps to protect their funding, UW has chosen to remain silent and set themselves up to be more agreeable to anti-trans right-wing politicians. In UWs eyes, any amount of public support for the trans community could set them up to be targeted in the future when it comes to federal and state funding.

Transgender students and our allies need to get organized. We need to recognize that we cannot afford to align ourselves with and support neoliberal institutions that continue to abandon us, throw us under the rug, and use our labor to fuel world-wide imperialism.

A common belief among the trans community is that we should channel our energy into voting. Voting for the Democrats will not help either, and it’s pretty clear that voting at all is not the answer. All these anti-trans bills have passed under a Democratic president. And for the global majority, who experience the continuous weight of US imperialism, domestic US politics doesn’t change a thing. Remember that Jenifer Laude, a Filipino Trans Women, was martyred by the Obama administration’s expanded military presence in the Philippines. Currently, Biden’s support of genocide has murdered countless queer Palestinians. Obama, Biden, Trump, and Cauce all want the same thing: limitless profit. To get it, they will support anything, from genocide and transphobia overseas to genocide and transphobia at home.

At the same time, mainstream media attempts to play to both sides, often framing state-attacks on the transgender community under the harmful guise of a ‘trans debate.’ This excuses transphobia. The Daily, a UW-funded propaganda paper at this point, is no better, choosing to remain silent and enabling the UW’s complacency towards transphobia.

UW, The Daily, and all neoliberal organizations will ultimately abandon us. In the face of neoliberal transphobia, we need student outrage, resistance, and organizing efforts. These institutions will never prioritize us, therefore, we must make a better life for ourselves by destroying what seeks to destroy us.

The University of Washington was contacted at the beginning of this series and continued to choose not to comment since then.