December 3, 2013
Our Transgender Day of Remembrance Ceremony took place on Wednesday, November 20. Transgender Day of Remembrance is set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred, prejudice, and violence. Transgender Day of Remembrance serves to raise public awareness of hate crimes against transgender people, as well as to publicly mourn and honor the lives of our community members who might otherwise be forgotten. Read more to see the thoughtful speech and poem brought forth by university community members Patricia Fly and Ava Dupre.
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TDOR speech by Patricia Fly
We come here tonight to remember those whose lives were snuffed out for being trans*. We say the names of those who were making it any way they could in societies that are actively hostile to their existence. Societies that forced many of them into working in occupations and participating in activities that society has deemed illegal in order to survive. So many died in a way that confirms society’s uncaring attitude: shot multiple times, stabbed, mutilated, burned, drowned, left to bleed to death, and ultimately dumped like trash, the ultimate and unfortunate metaphor of a society that considers trans* people, especially those on the trans feminine spectrum, to be nothing but trash.
For so many of those whose existence is being remembered tonight, they led lives filled with injustice in one or multiple ways.
· Being forced onto the streets to survive thanks to societies considering them to be impossible to understand, unemployable, unfit for the values of that society, unhuman.
· Being constantly harassed and assaulted on the streets, or in school, or in jails…
· Seeing the police as corrupt excuses for humans who would be particularly willing to throw trans feminine individuals in men’s jails for whatever unjust law an officer decides to enforce at that time
· Seeing government institutions as obstacles that actively deny their identity. These institutions do so by engraving this on all forms of identification, including ones they have to carry, and charge exorbitant fees with drawn out complicated processes for changing the identity that the state considers them to be, with perhaps the result of having their identity change denied at the whim of some judge or other state official.
· Hospital workers who refuse to provide any care, much less adequate care, an issue that especially impacts trans* people with disabilities.
Who knows how many trans* people have committed suicide thanks to suffering these injustices and many more?
These injustices persist because of the images of trans* people that pervade the media. Jokes and slurs are made with trans feminine individuals as the punch line… the typical jokes about “tranny hookers” and “spotting the tranny.” These jokes and images are conflicting by necessity, as there is no way to win… and there is supposed to be no way to win. If a trans person does not blend in to society’s satisfaction, they will be treated like trash and maybe given a death sentence just walking down the street. If they do blend in, they are considered a deceitful person who deserves a death sentence if the person they happen to be with disapproves of their existence.
And at the end, when the execution is performed, their existence and identity is nailed shut in their coffins by journalists who also disapprove of their existence. Using terms like “cross-dressing man” and “he” pronouns for a fallen trans woman, refusing to use her preferred name, or in the worst cases, actually using her prior legal name. Even when media standards inform journalists of the correct treatment for trans* people in the media, these journalists go rogue and force their warped sense of morality onto society. Just to keep the image of a deceitful tranny who got what “he” deserved. “Ah, if only that man who thinks he was a woman wasn’t out on the streets deceiving poor men,” people will say for the few seconds they bother to remember that event. Not only is the “deceitful tranny” meme reinforced, but the idea of cross-dressing as an evil act that will only lead to evil things is reinforced. Even if it was a cross-dressing man who was executed instead of a trans woman, it doesn’t change the fact that this society is unjustly condemning and blaming the victim for a completely harmless action.
What is especially unfortunate is that so often, families help stick this late person’s identity into the mud. Sometimes journalists are led to think that misgendering is okay if the family does it. Never mind that so often families constantly disapprove of a trans* person’s identity, sometimes to the point of kicking that person out on the streets. And yet, because of this harmful idea that sharing a little more DNA than the rest of the population means something sacred, a family member who may have helped cause that person’s death is put in the media as an authoritative source. Refusing to use that person’s actual name and, in some cases, refusing to even discuss that person’s identity. The aunt of Amari Hill, a woman who was killed 10 days ago in Richmond, Virginia, would only discuss her as the identity she was assigned at birth. She refused to discuss Amari’s actual identity. “I don’t want to talk about that, I don’t want to talk about that,” she said. But it needs serious talking about. We need to talk about how families may be so absolute in their values that they will condemn both the crime and the identity, as if the crime weren’t caused by those who also denied that identity.
I have been very privileged to transition quickly and safely in such a supporting community relative to other communities. Knowing that things could have gone much worse for me, I want to be able to give back, to become an advocate when necessary. What can you, what can each of us do to use whatever privileges we may individually have to stop this violence? What can we do about the fact that maybe every day a young trans* person is kicked out of their home and has to rely on the black market to stay alive, and from that point forward is considered a target by police?
I would like to pass along a few things that should be considered. One is that, as I’ve mentioned throughout, people on the trans feminine spectrum get both the brunt of visibility and the hatred. This is ultimately due to patriarchal societies that view femininity as inferior. This viewing of femininity as inferior results in viewing those on the trans feminine spectrum as failed men who would be better off not existing, or, if they must exist, in the part of town where good moral people don’t go.
Another thing that should be considered is that those who are marginalized in some way have even worse prospects when marginalized in an additional way. SO many trans* murders in the United States are those of women of color: black, Latina, Southeast Asian women. Trans feminine individuals of color suffer from lack of employment, police harassment, and illnesses such as HIV more than other trans* individuals. Additionally, It would not be surprising to find greater rates of murder and injury received by darker skinned trans* individuals in Latin American countries compared to lighter skinned ones. As another example, disabled trans* individuals for various reasons may be left to die or be treated as rabid animals who need to be put down. One of the trans women in the US who died this year, Mercedes Demarco, died after being tasered by police while suffering from an episode of mental illness, and this happened only because she was perceived as a dangerous man in woman’s clothing who needed to be put down by any means necessary.
This relates to one more thing that should be considered: police brutalization. In the US, many white citizens are completely unaware of the oppressive nature of law enforcement, yet more are figuring this out as police departments gradually militarize in the wake of September 11th. Of course, queer communities, transgender individuals, and communities of color in the US are aware and have been aware about this for many, many years. Just one example of the brutal nature of law enforcement is the fact that in the vast majority of jurisdictions, even if a trans* person has had all their documents changed, they may still be forced in a jail that corresponds to their assigned sex if they have not had reassignment surgery.
These few things I mentioned are merely the tip of the iceberg. With these among many other things to consider, I would like to tie this all together for being a trans* ally in all aspects of life, so one can remember transgender people the other 364 days of the year.
This is very obvious to some here, but everything is connected. As such, all oppressions are connected. For those who don’t understand fully, a good way to think about it is that for any action that is taken against a marginalized group, those who are marginalized in additional ways will suffer worse from it. Treating disabled people with disrespect or using them as jokes affects disabled trans* people especially hard, as it allows their illnesses to be used against them when they attempt to access trans* related medical treatment. Widespread xenophobia may end up with more incidents of undocumented trans women and trans feminine individuals being put with men in detention centers and being subject to rape. The examples can go on and on, but I hope you get the main idea. As all oppressions are connected, taking a stance of being against ALL oppressions will not only benefit trans* people, but also cis people who are marginalized in multiple ways by our present society. Putting an end to a culture that fosters murder of trans* individuals can start right now with you, me, all of us.
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Look at me with Closed Eyes: A Poem By Ava Dupre
to be vulnerable
to abandon the safe
so that we may live and love
to be held, to be touched
we know what we want
we know what is right for us
we know that which we are not
though waves of doubt hit us from inside and out
gender doesn't matter they say?
excuse me, it does in this world
and I've got a life to live
I ain't waitin'
for the world to be right
to be the holder of emotional safety
yet seen as a perpetrator of suffering
to be seen as the man who invades safe spaces
the unspoken message
that drives us away
steers us onto dark roads
gender doesn't matter?
clearly it does
to own the lap of a mother
to be the sister who makes us feel whole
to be a diva extraordinaire
an oral goddess
creator of divine sex
the kind that comes by makin' love
once every two or three years....or six times a day
we need some of that good lovin
lay some sugar on me
don't tell us what's right
don't tell us what matters
our untamed hearts
our very essence knows
unmistaken and inescapable
.....human
to know thyself
so absolutely
yet possess no tangible proof
leads our gaze upon a sea of faces
a crowd of bodies
in the white house
on the dance floor
or in them streets
we don't see ourselves
though we see self-doubt exists in all
with every right to be enraged
I could spread my legs
fuck whomever would have me
and as often as possible
to fill the emptiness
where eternity lie
or drink to all whispers of pain
dissipates into a cloud of unheard suffering....
I ain't goin out like that
on an average day
the sliver of identity
loses its breath
and I fall with the sun
until a new day breaks
like the sight of an old friend
waving in the distance
I lift my body
I carry her about
I open my mind
delicate yet impenetrable
another day
more opportunity
to bond with one, two or maybe five
an infinite number
whatever it takes
to keep me alive
I'm ridin' for you babygirls
I'm flyin' for you