STUDENT PERSONAS
Fictional representations of real student data
MÍA
She/they
2nd year undergraduate student studying social sciences
Biracial and newly out, exploring the non-binary label
Grew up in a rural town in Ontario
“While most of my experiences at U of T have been very positive, I still feel like I don’t quite fit in sometimes.”
My experience coming to U of T has been great so far – it's even been influential in my personal process accepting my identity. Growing up, I often struggled to understand which community I fit into. Being biracial, I was too white to engage with one cultural identity, but not white enough to relate to the experiences of my white friends and classmates. To add to this, my hometown was small and remote, I don’t think I met anyone who was trans or even queer there.
Living in Toronto for the past two years has been the first time I’ve really been able to live as my authentic self. A few of my classmates and one of my TAs from a class I took last semester were openly trans. I noticed that basically everyone in my classes acknowledged that trans people experience oppression in society—a fact that I used to argue with my high school classmates about all the time, because they just refused to believe it. Even after joining my program’s journal advisory board, I met another trans person who is also biracial at my program’s journal advisory board. It turned out they had very similar experiences defending their own identity. It was so reassuring to meet someone who I could totally relate to.
While most of my experiences at U of T have been very positive, I still feel like I don’t quite fit in sometimes. It can honestly be frustrating and embarrassing. I had to take a few huge intro-level courses in a large lecture hall, but I couldn’t find a gender-neutral bathroom in the area at all, which really stressed me out. I ended up waiting in line to ask the professor—someone I barely knew at the time—for directions. It was our first and only interaction because the class was so big, and I just know that if that happened a year ago, when I wasn’t out yet or did not know anyone like me, I might not even have had the courage to ask for directions. I probably would have just left the class early and gone home. I’m grateful my professor was understanding, because for a long time, I was not used to it. I just hope that the support I feel in my classes right now can also exist on the rest of the campus.
