Visualizing anti-trans legislation using RStudio
While I was working with Kenan İnce on their open source active learning book, Quantitative Reasoning for Social Justice, we discussed their dream chapter on using text data visualization to understand legislation about trans people in the US as a source for trans rights activism. İnce was trained as a poet and topologist and identified as non-binary (they/them), and I am trained as a number theorist and identify as a queer, biracial Latina (she/they). The nature of the project, demanding expertise in data analysis and familiarity with many different experiences of gender, made us both feel out of our depth. Regardless, we pushed on because this chapter is key to bringing culturally relevant topics into our classroom. Living in Salt Lake City, UT, with its vibrant queer communities, our goal has always been to create and defend habitable spaces in Utah for LGBTQ+ community members.
İnce passed away before we could finish this chapter. İnce was an activist poet-scholar and was committed to challenging legislation intent on erasing Utah’s queer communities. To quote from Heartstopper, “Trans people aren’t a debate. We’re human beings”. To honor İnce’s memory and legacy, their collaborators and I are working to finish Quantitative Reasoning for Social Justice.
