By Rachel Richardson

513-556-5219

Photos: Joseph Fuqua, UC Creative Services



Nov. 30, 2016

Three years ago, Sol pulled into the parking lot of a Target store on a whim, took a deep breath and mustered up the courage to walk through the whoosh of the automatic doors. The 21-year-old wanted a new outfit for an upcoming event, but this would be no ordinary shopping trip.

For Sol, who prefers to be identified by first name only due to privacy concerns, it was the University of Cincinnati graduate student’s first foray into the women’s section to shop for clothes — a monumental moment for someone who identifies as neither male nor female, known as nonbinary transgender.

As Sol quietly browsed the racks of clothes alongside two teenage girls, the girls’ mother approached.

“What are you doing?” the woman hissed to the girls. “Get the f--- away from that.”

In that moment, the woman’s words were chillingly clear to Sol, who uses the singular “they” pronoun: “I was the ‘that.’ I went out to my car and cried all the way down Interstate 71,” they said.

For transgender and gender nonconforming people, Sol’s experience is all too common, said Amy Schlag, director of the University of Cincinnati’s LGBTQ Center.

Dismissive store clerks. Hostile stares and comments from other shoppers. Fears and threats of violence. All combine to make an otherwise ordinary shopping jaunt an ordeal fraught with tension for people whose assigned genders at birth don’t match their gender identities, she said.

To combat those fears, the center recently launched The Closet, an initiative providing clothing, shoes and accessories at no cost to transgender and gender nonconforming students.

The Closet, a riff on the metaphorical process by which LGBTQ people publicly disclose their sexual orientation or gender, is actually a wardrobe purchased by Schlag from IKEA. Situated in the university’s LGBTQ Center alongside a full-length mirror, the brimming cabinet offers students a chance to “shop” among items donated by the UC community.