Fearless (and frolicking) in the forest

It was not a day for masks.

It was a day to be one’s authentic self without fear of being judged, rejected or discriminated against.

It was the third TransWild Forest Frolic at Mount Pisgah Arboretum, an event organized by TransPonder, the Eugene nonprofit that provides support, resources and education for transgender and gender-diverse folks and their allies.

“It creates community,” said Emz Avalos, TransPonder’s executive director, sitting April 19 under the arboretum’s White Oak Pavilion as a day of workshops, nature walks and live music was just getting underway. “It allows us to come together and just be ourselves.”

Transgender and gender-diverse people sometimes use “masking” — suppressing or hiding aspects of one’s true gender identity to conform to societal expectations or navigate social situations — for safety reasons or to avoid discrimination.

“So, events like this make the community comfortable, and we can be ourselves without any worries and show younger generations that trans people exist,” said Avalos, 32. She was at the event with her partner, Laurel, and their two children, ages 5 and 3.

“When I came out as trans, I didn’t have any idea or even a role model. I didn’t know of a person that was older, that I could see myself in, and that has changed in recent years.”

Transgender people and those who identify as nonbinary (neither exclusively male or female or no gender at all) or in other ways that fall outside the traditional male-female spectrum, have perhaps never had greater reasons to mask themselves.

Since President Donald Trump retook office Jan. 20, he’s issued a flurry of executive orders, including several that target the legitimacy of transgender people. One of 25 orders Trump signed on day one — “Defending Women From Gender Ideology and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” — uses the term “biological reality” six times. 

It also states the federal government now recognizes only two sexes, male and female, and they “are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”

Jacob Griffin, 68, a transgender Eugene man who attended TransWild, worries about the impact of this culture war on transgender and nonbinary youth. 

Language in the executive orders asserts transgender people are “inherently disloyal and dishonest,” Griffin said, as in Trump’s order banning transgender people from the military, or the very title of the order “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which misgenders every transgender woman to which it applies.

“Think about reading that your government thinks that about you,” said Griffin, who came to the event with his wife, Marian Drabkin, and the couple’s granddaughter.

Griffin, who was wearing a blue Superman T-shirt, a blue yarmulke on his head and sporting prescription sunglasses with a dark brown-and-gray goatee, is a member of the Trans Alliance of Lane County. The group has been showing up during the public comment portion of Lane County Board of Commissioners’ meetings the past few months, pushing for a statement from the board, asking it to stand with the county’s transgender and immigrant communities in light of the Trump administration’s executive orders.

April 22, they got it. The board voted 3-2 to accept what Griffin says is the statement’s “beautiful language” that upholds Oregon’s 4-year-old Sanctuary Promise Act and shows support for the county’s trans and immigrant communities.

“At Lane County, we remain dedicated to fighting for transgender equality in recognition of the unique challenges transgender people face, including the need for gender-affirming care,” the statement reads in part. “Studies show gender-affirming care saves lives by supporting mental well-being among gender-diverse populations. Lane County must amplify the voices of transgender people, break down barriers, and ensure our county is an inclusive haven for all.”

Another Trump executive order, “Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” calls for an end to any gender-affirming surgery or treatment to anyone under 19 and the loss of federal funding to any hospital or medical facility that continues with such care.

‘Visible with their joy’

Marlie Heberling, TransPonder’s development and outreach director, pushed for the TransWild event a couple of years ago because she not only wanted to see trans folks get out and hike together – something they’re often resistant to do alone – but also because she “really wanted to do something that says, ‘This is for you.’”

“Community is a form of health care,” she said. Especially for young people, added Heberling, who uses both the pronouns she/they. 

A 14-year-old who’s trying to figure out their identity can often feel isolated, but at an event like TransWild, they see transgender people “visible with their joy” and feel connected, she said.

“We’re at risk right now,” said Heberling, as Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s “Over the Rainbow” flowed from the sound system in front of the pavilion. 

That risk is twofold, she said, both from external forces like Trump’s executive orders and mental health challenges that sort of targeting presents. 

If numbers are any indication, this year’s TransWild event was a big hit during an almost cloudless spring day with temperatures in the low 60s.

An official count showed 358 people checked in — many proudly displaying name tags that included their pronouns — about three times the number of folks who attended in 2024. About 40-50 people attended the first TransWild event in September 2023.

“You should go out in the world and exist as a trans person — it’s important,” Jocelyn Prier, 22, said. 

Prier, who identifies as nonbinary, performed a drag show at the event as their on-stage persona, Clyde Maxx, danced and lip-synched to songs like Death Cab for Cutie’s “Soul Meets Body” and the Fleet Foxes’ “White Winter Hymnal.”

Springfield Eugene Tenant Association, or SETA, one of at least a dozen organizations with booths at the event, had a sign which asked, “Is your landlord shady?” on a white eraser board.

“Where our organization really shines is we help folks in our community understand what their rights are,” said Tim Morris, SETA’s executive director, whom Lookout Eugene-Springfield contacted by phone after the TransWild event. 

If a renter has been in their home for a year or more, state law says they can only be evicted for cause, such as nonpayment, damaging property, and so forth.

“We’ve seen an increase in creative work around landlord-tenant law” when it comes to transgender folks and others, Morris said. 

Common issues for transgender renters, Morris said, include having their names misgendered on rental contracts or being harassed by landlords at their front door after the landlord discovers a tenant who signed a contract remotely is trans.

“If you’re not a straight white male (renter), we see it across the board,” he said of landlord harassment. 

Difficult and dangerous

Transgender and nonbinary people, of which there are about 1.6 million ages 13 and above in the United States, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, also feel harassed when it comes to obtaining government ID, specifically passports.

Part of Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order on gender ideology and “restoring biological truth” removed the ability to change one’s gender marker and the ability for nonbinary people to use “X” as a gender marker on federal ID.

One of the services TransPonder provides is its legal ID change program. Transgender and gender-diverse Oregonians of all ages are eligible for financial assistance and help with paperwork on name and gender marker changes for birth certificates, driver’s licenses, Real IDs and passports. 

But TransPonder stopped providing financial assistance to update gender markers on U.S. passports soon after Trump’s executive order. 

“This is due to the changing federal policy and rising evidence that the U.S. Department of State is confiscating supporting documentation for requests to amend the gender marker,” says an update on TransPonder’s website.

TransPonder has already provided $5,000 worth of ID changes this year, for driver’s licenses, birth certificates and other forms of ID, more than in any previous year, said Avalos, the executive director. 

There’s been a spike in requests since Trump was elected, she said. 

“We only budgeted $5,000, because we’d never had more than that in an entire year before. We’re now looking for ways to fund it (the rest of the year), because it’s clearly a need the community has.”

For Avalos, the Trump administration’s policies have a double-whammy effect.

She’s not only transgender, she’s an immigrant, born in her mother’s native Mexico (her father was born in the United States) and moved to Los Angeles around age 11. She is a naturalized U.S. citizen — someone born in another country but who has legally fulfilled specific requirements.

But Trump has also threatened to try to deport some naturalized U.S. citizens.

Does Avalos dare leave the U.S. now, to visit family in Mexico, given the current climate? Does she renew her passport — which she already changed from male to female during transition — when it expires in 2027, while Trump is still in office?

What if Trump were to somehow secure an unconstitutional third term, as he’s hinted at? What if Vice President J.D. Vance is elected president in 2028? 

“So it’s scary,” said Avalos, who’s working on getting Mexican passports for her and her children. 

“It just shows how very difficult, and very dangerous, life for trans individuals has become under this administration,” she said.

Feb. 7, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on behalf of seven transgender, nonbinary and intersex people.

A federal judge in Boston ordered the Trump administration April 18 to issue passports that reflect the self-identified gender of six of those people rather than requiring the passports to display the sex on the applicants’ original birth certificates, according to The New York Times. (A seventh applicant already holds a passport with the sex marker that corresponds to his gender identity.)

Judge Julia E. Kobick ruled Trump’s policy amounts to a form of unconstitutional sex discrimination under the Fifth Amendment, as well as the Administrative Procedures Act, according to the Times.

The order doesn’t bar the government from upholding the new passport requirement for other transgender people.

Lucky in Eugene

The passport dilemma is just one more barrier for transgender people, Avalos said. 

“Historically, we have always chosen different populations as a scapegoat and as a way to blame political things on someone, whether it’s immigrants (or) trans people,” she said. 

Griffin’s wife, Drabkin, 85, said what transgender people are dealing with reminds her of another era in American history.

“At my age, I’ve seen sad and scary times before,” she said, walking the arboretum grounds in a worn pink sun hat and sunglasses. 

Drabkin’s mother worked in Hollywood, as a background musician in films, in the early 1950s. This became known as the McCarthy era, for the anti-Communist crusading U.S. senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy.

Many of her mother’s friends in the entertainment industry were called in front of committees and asked to name names and/or blacklisted in Hollywood for alleged or perceived communist ties or sympathies.

“But now they’re doing it to trans people,” Drabkin said. “We’re so lucky to live in Eugene. But there’s still that feeling of something hanging over us. And it’s just not right. People are people. Some people have red hair. Some people are trans. Some people are a–holes.”

Avalos theorizes that all the vexation around gender ideology in the age of Trump 2.0 comes down to one thing:

“Anger is a powerful emotion, and they’re using the anger to manipulate voters and manipulate people that might not want to, or cannot, educate themselves on issues,” she said. “And they’re using that anger to work their agenda.”

The Lavender Network

TransPonder is located at 440 Maxwell Road, the former site of Trinity United Methodist Church, in Eugene. It’s part of the Lavender Network, formerly the Queer Resource Center — a collaboration between TransPonder, HIV Alliance, Queer Eugene, Eugene Pride and the Authentic Movement Project.

Queer Community Day

What: Annual day of art and games, music, raffle, clothing swap, free sexually transmitted infection testing and hormone replacement therapy injection supplies.

When: Noon to 4 p.m., May 10

Where: The Lavender Network, 440 Maxwell Road, Eugene