What I Said

My comments at last night’s Transgender Day of Remembrance:

Thank you all for coming.

As far as I know, this is the first Transgender Day of Remembrance for Appleton, and that’s cool. Thank you to all of you who made this happen. I don’t usually go to them myself, because for me, not remembering isn’t even a possibility. Because we know that when we leave the house, or when our loved ones leave the house, there is some chance that some person out there will decide our loved one’s gender is wrong and bad. & We know there are people in the world who think that violence is a way to fix their own fear, and cops who think our lives aren’t important, and courts that think panic is a legitimate reason for murder.

What I’d like instead is a day that I can’t remember the violence committed against people who live their genders despite transphobia, who believe in their own dignity and right to exist. What I’d like is a day when the faces of those who were brutally murdered for being who they are don’t flip through my mind as reminders of the fear I need to live with. What I’d like is a day when no day like this needs to happen.

Most of us gathered here tonight are sheltered by some kind of privilege or another. We may be white, we may be cis, we may be educated; we may have money and health insurance and the possibility of getting a job without questions about our genders. Most of the trans people we are remembering tonight had few of those things, or none of them; too many of the people who are killed every year are people of color, people who do sex work, people who have to decide between work that has sky-high risks and starving. For some trans people, it is just the human desire f0r companionship, that makes them vulnerable to these kinds of attacks.

So while we remember those murdered, I want to celebrate them too. Because I see beautiful, engaged, joyful people in the trans community. I see people in love; I see people with careers and jobs and families and hopes. I see people with aspirations and confidence. What I see when I look around the trans community is a great deal of joy – the kind that people who haven’t known trans people can’t begin to understand, the kind of joy that comes with relief, and with victory not just over the transphobic world we live in, but with the internalized transphobia all of us share, trans and non trans alike.

TDOR

I’m speaking tonight at a Transgender Day of Remembrance event for the first time. I’ve been reluctant to speak at one for a long time because, as I’ve written in the past, I find it depressing that transphobic violence is the most visible face of the trans community, which is otherwise a community of outstanding talent, energy, humor and beauty. As an ally, I am creeped out by the idea that many people first come into contact with trans people via violence and murder. I am suspicious of the exploitation of trans people by LGB groups who don’t otherwise pay our community much notice.

Not remembering, for most of us involved in trans politics or activism, is not possible. There are too many deaths every year, & too many of us are touched personally by a death. Most of us have faced at least the threat of violence and all of us worry about it.

I am also hesitant about the privilege expressed on TDOR: that those murdered are often not just trans but are people of color, and many, as well, are involved in sex work or are otherwise working class. Employment discrimination, racism, and other aspects of otherness work together to create an atmosphere where some lives are valued more than others, and plenty of trans people live lives of remarkable privilege.

And cis allies, sadly, can often be unaware of exactly how much privilege being not trans is.

That’s some of what I’ll talk about tonight.

All of that said, I am touched and amazed at how well-known TDOR is these days: numerous students, friends, and organizations have written or posted something on Facebook and blogs to mark the day and remember those we’ve lost. And that, ultimately, is the kind of cultural recognition that’s important, as long as it doesn’t end there.

GLAAD Series on TDOR

GLAAD today began a series of blog posts about Transgender Day of Remembrance which is being observed on Sunday, November 20.

There is a great list of TDOR events on the official page, created by Ethan St. Pierre: http://www.transgenderdor.org/.

GLAAD Guest post from Stephanie Battaglino: http://www.glaad.org/blog/stephanie-battaglino-what-transgender-day-remembrance-means-me.

GLAAD Guest post from Ja’briel Walthour: http://www.glaad.org/blog/stephanie-battaglino-what-transgender-day-remembrance-means-me.

Info on event in NY hosted by the LGBT Center: http://www.glaad.org/events/tdor2011nyc and in LA: http://www.glaad.org/events/tdor2011weho.

GLAAD resource calling for mainstream media to report on TDOR: www.glaad.org/publications/tdorkit.

I wrote one of these for their series a couple  of years ago, and I’m glad to see they’re doing it again.

Compassion

Occasionally, human beings express compassion for the rest of the critters on this planet.


Watch More Christian Videos on GodVine.com

We got to walk a family of ducks across a busy avenue here a couple of years ago, maybe a total of a half mile from where they started to the river.

Both Ways

A trans woman is insisting a Tennessee DMV can’t have it both ways: either they decide she’s a man and she should be legally allowed to go topless, or she is a woman & then they need to change her gender marker on her license to an F.

So she took her shirt off outside the DMV, and they promptly arrested her. I’m sure they still didn’t change her gender marker, however.

These ‘gender determined by genitals’ laws have got to go.

Tonight in Appleton

Tonight, progressives in Appleton faced the possibility that the position of Diversity Coordinator and the Diversity program would be cut or not funded. Also, there was a possibility that the domestic partner benefits for Appleton city employees might not make it through the budget process, too.

But tonight we kept a priority on diversity and equality.

And while I’m pleased – this is the 4th time (?) I’ve testified before Appleton’s Common Council, and I’m sure they’re tired of me by now – it was pretty rough sitting and listening to a bunch of people who don’t know me call me a moral stain and tell me I’m going to hell. It’s not something I haven’t heard before – as a feminist, as a green, as a queer – but there is something particularly painful to me when I hear that kind of rhetoric coming from Christians, and who say those things because they’re Christians.

It makes me wonder if I missed the part about the Good Samaritan asking first if the guy was gay.

I also wonder – when I hear haters stand behind their status as tax payers – if it ever occurs to homophobic types that LGBTQ people pay taxes too, and into a government that doesn’t treat them as equals. I wonder how well that would sit with people who don’t understand but who – for other reasons – are of a more libertarian stripe.

I pointed that latter piece out tonight, because I think that’s at least some of who I’m talking to here in Appleton.

But “moral stain” I really can’t get past. There’s something so dehumanizing and miserable about that one.

My other bit of wonder is how it is that people who think homosexuality is immoral – and they’re free to think it is – somehow think that justifies treating LGBTQ people as less than citizens. I mean, it’s not like queers have the corner on immorality, right? So do we stop paying health insurance for the partner of a man who commits adultery? I mean, which sins count, exactly, when it comes to citizenship? Which morality matters?

Eh, the whole process makes me sad, but I’m thankful for the other progressives who came tonight, and other nights, to speak truth to power. I’m thankful to all the common council members who are still there, at midnight, wrestling with a budget for this city I live in. I feel thankful that I’ve been given at least some skills to fight for justice.