University of Pennsylvania junior Roderick Cook believes that it’s important for those in positions of privilege and power to redistribute resources to help marginalized communities in Philadelphia and beyond.

Ever since the gender, sexuality and women’s studies major first became aware of being a member of the LGBT community, LGBT rights has been a priority. Cook, an organizer with Penn Students for Justice in Palestine, works at the Penn LGBT Center, is on the board of Penn's Lambda Alliance and is a Penn Civic Scholar.

Cook co-founded and continues to help lead Penn Non-Cis, the University’s only student group dedicated to transgender and gender non-conforming students. The term non-cis is short for non-cisgender. It encompasses people from the trans community or anybody who doesn’t identify with the gender assigned at birth.

“We educate other groups about how best to be allies to and inclusive of trans people, make safe spaces for trans people to discuss their experiences and issues and plan an annual open mic night for and about trans experiences, ” Cook says.

Cook is from the small Pennsylvania town of Nesquehoning. Attending Penn and living in Philadelphia for the past three years has sparked an interest in more radical LGBT activism and social justice.

“Anti-racist trans justice is the fight that I want to fight for, thanks in large part to people I’ve met here at Penn,” Cook says. “It takes a lot of bravery to work to change the institution that you’re a part of and a lot of wisdom to recognize that we at Penn are not always the most affected by these issues.”

Last summer Cook was a communications intern at the Leeway Foundation in Philadelphia, an art foundation that gives grants to trans and women artists in the city who are creating art for social change.

For a year, Cook wrote articles about social justice for The Daily Pennsylvanian, the independent student newspaper on campus. Some of writing drew “a lot of pushback, criticism and sometimes meanness and disrespect [about] identity.”

Cook, who got a lot of support from friends and allies to stay inspired and keep writing, says, “At such a big and diverse school, there are bound to be people who bring you down and criticize what you fight for. But the lesson I learned was that, for every one of those people, there are more fighting by your side.”

When Cook isn’t in class, a favorite activity is hanging out at Penn’s LGBT Center, “a home away from home.” It’s a safe space to fight for trans justice or take a break to relax and play video games with friends.