A California college created a scholarship fund for transgender students, according to a Thursday announcement.
MiraCosta College launched Trans* Pride Scholarship, a fund to help transgender, gender nonconforming students and allies to the community, reports the Times of San Diego.
“While members of the LGBT community experience marginalization, this marginalization is experienced most greatly by members of the transgender and gender nonconforming communities,” Steven Deineh, co-adviser of the Gender Sexuality Alliance Faculty, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
The scholarship will hand out $1,000 per year to a transgender or gender nonconforming student each spring. A committee of faculty, staff, and foundation members chooses the student, Deineh told The DCNF.
Various school members and students created the Trans’ Pride scholarship in 2015 out of a growing concern “with traditional and historic barriers to higher education for transgender and gender nonconforming students,” the school said.
Faculty, students, staff and MiraCosta College Board of Trustees members began donating to the fund, which has raised over $25,000 as of Friday. The Gender Sexuality Alliance helped with a lot of the fundraising by hosting bake sales and a drag show.
Other colleges, like UC San Diego and San Diego State University have scholarships geared to the entire LGBT community. Deineh believes MiraCosta is the first college to have a scholarship specifically geared towards trans and gender nonconforming students, he told The DCNF.
“Scholarships and visible support for members of this at-risk community are critical right now as states like Indiana and North Carolina and highly visible government officials are disavowing the civil rights of transgender people under the auspices of religious freedom,” Deineh continued.
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