Collegian.PSU.edu – By Meaghan Haugh – Collegian Staff Writer
During grade school, when her classmates began to call her derogatory names, Gwen Smith knew what was bound to happen next.
“It meant I was just about to get the crap beaten out of me,” Smith said. “I was the school sissy.”
So, she learned to run as quickly as she could.
At the age of nine, Smith said she was raped.
Before she began to speak, Smith, a transgender activist who created International Transgender Day of Remembrance, warned the crowd of 30 people in Foster Auditorium last night that the stories she was about to tell were “somewhat disturbing.”
Smith, who is transgender herself, told countless stories of transgender men and women being stabbed, beaten and drowned to death because of their sexual identity within the past decade.