A solemn air filled the 1600 building at Las Positas College on a mid-March day in 2024. Students made posters adorned with rainbow colors, put flowers in vases and pictures in frames. They were setting up a memorial for Nex Benedict, a non-binary student who died in Oklahoma last year, following an altercation in a school bathroom.
Now, according to Dani Blatter, a geology professor and advisor for the Sexuality and Gender Alliance, the club aims to create a “safe space” for members of the LGBTQ+ community at LPC.
“We’ve been just focusing on creating a safe space for queer people,” Blatter said. “I guess that’s a form of advocacy.”
Since his inauguration in January, Donald Trump has signed over 12 executive orders, targeting LGBTQ+ citizens, especially transgender individuals. On his first day in office, he stated the federal government would only recognize two sexes: male or female. To much controversy, his administration removed any acknowledgement of transgender and intersex travelers, requiring many transgender Americans to receive passports with their sex assigned at birth.
Blatter, who identifies as a transgender woman, began teaching at LPC in 2023 following a career at Berkeley National Laboratory. She began as an advisor with SAGA in 2024 after attending a panel on supporting LGBTQ+ students at LPC. While Blatter says the club is focused on advocacy, she notes that many of her students need community during a time of uncertainty.
“We’re just trying to make sure that everybody who is queer on campus knows that there’s a place they can go and that they feel welcome,” Blatter said.
After the election, Blatter noticed that many members of SAGA and the LBGTQ+ community at LPC were “tired.” The club allows them a space to “have political conversations,” if they’d like, but they are also welcome to draw, play games, do homework and catch up with friends. Blatter says it “empowers” her to show up on campus and “hang out with the queer students.”
“I can just be present for my students,” Blatter said. “That’s, I guess, what they most need.”
Blatter acknowledges a “frightening” wave of anti-trans legislation being passed around the country. However, according to Blatter, living in California has provided her with protections, not many in “red states”—those with Republican lead legislatures and executive branches—have.
“I wasn’t immediately afraid that my life was going to, (from) one day to the next, become very dangerous or threatened, or I was going to be harmed or impacted in a direct way,” Blatter said. “There are definitely trans people who don’t have that luxury.” Blatter says that in Utah- her home state- several anti-trans measures are being passed, including expanding restrictions on gender affirming healthcare.
Blatter also said that she was disappointed at the “general direction” society was heading in. Across the country, several hospitals have stopped providing gender affirming care to individuals under the age of 19. Following his inauguration, President Trump stated that the federal government was going to withhold funding if these medical services continued. NYU Langone, a hospital Blatter’s brother-in-law was employed at, “immediately complied.”
Several members of SAGA expressed similar sentiments to Blatter, with Joshua Richey, a non-binary student and graphic design major, stating that LPC and SAGA have been “really accepting” places. However, they acknowledged that it’s “disheartening and awkward” because they “just have to go about life like nothing’s wrong.” They also state that they’ve been taking measures to “protect themselves.”
“It’s more of a mental process, just mentally preparing for the worst,” they said. “I’ve been considering now more than ever in the not too distant future joining some kind of LGBT advocacy group and volunteering or maybe joining a local democratic group.”
Richey said that they’ve already begun to see the result of Trump’s rhetoric even though the “Bay Area is one of the most friendly places for queer people in the country.” According to them, social media — which they referred to as the “town square”— often amplifies anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments.
“(I’ve) been seeing it on my algorithms, seeing it in the news and seeing them trying to legally define trans people out of existence,” Richey said. “It’s been hectic.”
Despite the supportive nature of the college, they stated that they wish the college would acknowledge the onslaught of anti-LGBT and anti-trans legislation from the federal government.
“Everything just sort of seems business as usual, but it’s clearly not,” Richey said. “If you’re a queer person, your status is kind of a political thing regardless of whether you want it to be.”
Similar to Richey, Jeanette D’Addabbo, says that she wishes the college made it easier to report instances of harassment on campus. D’Addabbo is a third year business administration major and President of SAGA who identifies as lesbian and queer.
She said that she feels that it’s hard to go through the proper “channels” if a student doesn’t have a professor on campus they trust. In addition, D’Addabbo acknowledged instances of vitriol, where after reporting, nothing came of it, including harassment at a Coming Out Day event last year.
“I’d seen someone, openly and without shame, grab a stack of, maybe, 50 pamphlets and ripped them up right in front of us,“ she said. “That was very discouraging.”
D’Addabbo and several SAGA members and officers made educational pamphlets to hand out during the event. She says her and several others told an advisor about the incident, but without a name there wasn’t much the club could do. She said that she believes it was “most likely a student.”
“Even in one of the bluest of states, there’s pockets of red, pockets of hatred.”
In addition to this, D’Addabbo recalled an incident regarding an openly transphobic professor at LPC.
“I was very shocked that that professor was even a professor at Las Positas. Everyone is allowed to have their own ideological and political opinions, but him being so openly transphobic was, frankly, disgusting.” D’Addabbo said.
Inspired by instances like this, D’Addabbo says that SAGA hopes to continue “advocacy work,” such as the memorial for Nex Benedict and speaking out against faculty and other member of the Chabot-Las Positas Community Colllege who promote anti-LGBT+ rhetoric.
D’Addabbo says that in an “unofficial” event, she and other SAGA officers and several members spoke out against CLCCPD board member Luis Reynoso after an anti-LGBTQ+ post from his LinkedIn account garnered attention following interactions with several LPC students at the time. Reynoso later received a vote of no confidence, allowing him to stay on the board until the next election but without any voting power. Reynoso was not reelected in 2024.
While Richey, D’Addabbo and Blatter acknowledge their fears about the state of the country, they say that they feel as though SAGA has given them a community of those facing similar struggles at a time of uncertainty. Looking to the future, they say they want to continue advocating for their communities while creating a social space for marginalized people. D’Addabbo and Blatter recognize that while a person may be different from someone else, the best way to combat these types of prejudice is being open to change.
“I think initial reactions when you see someone who isn’t like you is to feel a little bit frightened,” Blatter said. “ I think the best way to respond is to say is to relax and be, ‘Ok, there’s a part of me that is scared by the otherness of this person. I’m seeing a person who is not like me in some important way, but I trust that that is still a human being just like me.’”
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TOP PHOTO: LPC student-artist Mikayla Henry featured artwork at the LGBTQ+ Art Exhibit at LPC’s Art Gallery in March 2025. Henry was one of several artists who displayed work in the exhibit. (Photo by Ian Kapsalis/The Express)
Raina Dent is a Staff Writer for The Express. Follow her on X, formally Twitter, @_rainasafiya
