Maayan Nuri Héd, left, Luna Celestia Mornelithe, Jackson Rodriguez and Jay Santangelo talked about their experiences and where they had found allyship and community.

PITTSFIELD, Mass.— Ahead of Monday's International Transgender Day of Visibility, community members shared their experiences with gender diversity during a panel discussion at Berkshire Community College.

"Really my goal, I think, ultimately in life is to make being trans such a casual thing that it isn't even a question anymore," Jackson Rodriguez, a teaching assistant, told a packed lecture hall on last Wednesday.

"It's just a way of being. I wouldn't say I've ever come out. I would always say that I'm just — I've always been me."

Hosted by the Queer Student Association, conversation topics ranged from gender and coming out to movies, drag, and safe spaces in the community. There are over 1.6 million trans, nonbinary, and gender-expansive people in the United States, "and they are going to continue to exist, whether you have a say in it or not," said QSA President Briana Booker.

"Trans people are not asking you to give them special treatment. They are not asking you to put away your beliefs and your ideas to fit a world for them," Booker said. "They are asking to be treated as they are: human beings, people."

Panelists included Rodriguez; artist and director of nonprofit Seeing Rainbows Maayan Nuri Héd;  Wander Berkshires founder Jay Santangelo, and artist Lunarya 'Luna' Celestia Mornelithe. When asked how they define gender, Héd said, "I don't," Mornelithe joked, "I lost mine," Santangelo explained it is fluid for them, and Rodriguez said gender is a performative thing that can be changed however a person sees fit.

Attendees had several questions about allyship, as President Donald Trump recently signed several executive orders targeting gender-diverse identities, including a declaration that the U.S. only recognizes "male" and "female" as sexes.

"Something I find myself repeating ad nauseum to people because it's really, really simple but so important and people resist doing it, is to have a conversation," Héd said. "Specifically have a conversation with a trans person."