Charlie and the T-House Events Series
By An Pham
The pandemic has limited chances for many students to find resources that they need for studying, but City College’s Queer Resource Center has been hosting a series of events called The T-House which could fulfill both for their students.
The Queer Resource Center announced that they will be hosting an event series for transmasculine and masculine of center communities called the T-House, and more importantly, the event series are completely online for the safety of people.
Charlie Garcia-Spiegel, Queer Resource Center Student Lab Aide and host of the event series, said the he had the idea about this type of event since 2017 when he was studying in the east coast.
According to The T-House’ website, “The T-House is a community gathering space and event series for transmasculine and masculine of center individuals… and also include anyone who feels included by the phrase ‘transmasculine and masculine of center people’ regardless of specific gender identity or affectional orientation.”
T-House has already hosted four events since the end of October counting to the closest one was about Navigating Trans Healthcare, held on Nov 12. The focusing activities were sharing skills within the community to navigate the medical world as a transmasculine or masculine of center person.
Garcia-Spiegel said that the internet have always been a great help for non-binary communities to conect with each other since before the pandemic. And when the pandemic did hit, going online became necessary more than ever before.
“Isolation is something we all struggle with, and the internet has been a blessing, that’s kind of a way that we have built our communities.” Garcia-Spiegel said, “I’ve brought the agenda for all of them but it all went a different way, but that’s kind of a great thing about this kind meeting because it’s the wants and the needs of the communities that’s important.”
Garcia-Spiegel also dropped a message to everyone living in the Bay Area at the end of The T-House’ website to remind us of Indigenous people and their land. “There’s a lot of things we owe to them, and that’s a way that I usually do as a land acknowledgement to remind everyone that not all is given to us freely.”
“This space, while virtual, was organized by staff and student workers residing and working on stolen Ramaytush Ohlone land in Yelamu, colonially known as San Francisco, and on stolen Lisjan Ohlone land in Huchiun, colonially known as Oakland.” The website ends with an essential message, “We invite you to reflect on where you are logging in from, and to form meaningful relationships with the Indigenous communities of your area.”
The T-House next event will be hosted on Nov 19, and the topic is “Trans Resilience and Community Care” and there’s only two other events that will follow to wrap up the semester. Registration for the event will be on their website.
City College has a wide variety of courses for gender studies and social justice studies, and the school also offers Women Resource Center and Queer Resource Center which offers a lot of programs and events, such as “The T-House event series,” to support their diverse students in many diferent ways, especially during this pandemic.