Category: trans

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.

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.

Since what I’ve written here has now been commented on elsewhere, I will write more about the experience of loss when you’re the loved one of a trans person.

Y’all are going to force me to write another book, you know?

Honestly, you’d think being an ally for umpteen years would enable someone to come up with something a little better than “she blames the dad too.” I don’t. I blame the un-critical use of trans narratives that don’t account for the actual loss experienced by the loved ones of trans people – the loss especially experienced by those of us who stick by you through transition.

So I’ll say more, since I am also actually in mourning, and goddamn do I know the difference between the loss that comes with transition & the loss that comes with an actual death.

The caption was what got me: “After Dad had gender reassignment surgery, he promised he’d be the same person.”