1. The Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada, Gender Justice Nevada, Mary Magdalene Friends United Church of Christ, Northwest Community Church and Get Equal Nevada have joined forces to present the weeklong event, meant to both celebrate and bring awareness to the transgender community.
2. Programming began today with a Trans Pride March from the Center to City Hall and concludes Sunday with a mixer at Club Metro. All other events occur at the Center and include Thursday’s TransGiving; Friday’s Transgender Day of Remembrance Vigil; a Saturday Transgender Day of Empowerment event that includes educational workshops, wellness activities and speakers; and Sunday’s worship service and Transgender Day of Celebration, featuring musical entertainment, comedy and more.
3. Trans Pride Week’s first keynote speaker will be Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, the executive director of the Transgender, Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project. Griffin-Gracy, who has been advocating for transgender people for more than 40 years, was present at the Stonewall uprising in 1969. She speaks at the Center Friday evening and Saturday afternoon.
4. “Transgender” is an umbrella term that encompasses a diverse group of people. According to the Center’s Mel Goodwin, the term “refers to individuals whose gender identity differs from the one they were assigned at birth.” Goodwin goes on to describe that while sex is a biological term based on external genitalia, gender identity is one’s own internal understanding of gender.
5. Some transgender community members do not use traditional masculine and feminine pronouns. Two examples of this are: “They,” “them” and “theirs” and “ze,” “zir” and “zirs.” “Those pronouns are used because not everyone identifies as male or female,” says Goodwin, “or really identifies within the binary system of sex gender that Western society has really accepted to be true … That’s not the gender and sex experience of every person.”
Editor's note: Initially this story was published with the omission of Gender Justice Nevada as one of the Trans Pride Week organizers.
