[142] Transgendered Student Speaks Out About Bullying, Violence

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct. 14, 2010
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Brandon Farrar, MT Lambda President, 615-785-2921

TRANSGENDERED STUDENT SPEAKS OUT ABOUT BULLYING, VIOLENCE
Victim of Attack at Cal State Long Beach Brings Message to MTSU Students Tonight

(MURFREESBORO) – Colle Carpenter, a transgender graduate student at California State University, Long Beach, will speak about hate crimes tonight, Oct. 14, at 7 p.m. in the State Farm Lecture Hall of MTSU’s Business and Aerospace Building.
On Apr. 15, Carpenter was attacked by a man who approached him inside the restroom of KKJZ, the Cal State Long Beach campus radio station. The 27-year-old Carpenter has said he has had difficulty sleeping since the incident.
A report in the Contra Costa Times newspaper states that the suspect called Carpenter by his first name and asked if he was Carpenter. After Carpenter answered in the affirmative, the suspect pulled Carpenter’s T-shirt over his head, shoved him into a bathroom stall and carved the word “it” into Carpenter’s chest with a sharp object. The incident remains under investigation by campus police. No arrests have been made.
For 22 years, Carpenter lived as Nicolle Carpenter. He came out as a lesbian when he was 17, but he came to realize that he was actually transgender in 2004. In July 2006, he underwent a bilateral mastectomy. A few months later, he began testosterone treatments. Eventually, Carpenter plans to have a hysterectomy, but he does not intend to undergo genital reconstruction surgery.
Bullying of gays and lesbians has received increased media coverage in recent weeks. Tyler Clementi, an 18-year-old Rutgers University student, leaped to his death last month from the George Washington Bridge in New York after video of him having sex with another man was posted on the Internet. The video allegedly was streamed by Clementi’s roommate and promoted on Twitter.
Since Clementi’s suicide, “Project Runway” co-host and fashion expert Tim Gunn admitted publicly that he tried to kill himself when he was 17 by taking pills. Gunn recorded a public service announcement for The Trevor Project, a national nonprofit organization that runs a suicide hotline for members of the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) community.
Carpenter’s address is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Brandon Farrar of MT Lambda at 615-785-2921.

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Founded in 1911, Middle Tennessee State University is a Tennessee Board of Regents institution located in Murfreesboro and is the state’s largest public undergraduate institution. MTSU now boasts one of the nation’s first master’s degree programs in horse science, and the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington, D.C., acclaims MTSU’s Master of Science in Professional Science degree—the only one in Tennessee—as a model program. This fall, MTSU unveiled three new doctoral degrees in the sciences.