The big tent and the Day of Rembembrance

In my family, when we celebrate Passover we often have non-Jewish friends join us for dinner. Enjoying their company in an overtly Jewish context helps to defuse potential prejudice, and the specific activity of the night, the retelling of the story of slavery in Egypt and our exodus from it, gives them the opportunity to condemn the slavery and in turn reaffirm their tolerance for us and our different practices.

I should point out here that I'm actually not that different from our guests, being half-Scottish and pretty well assimilated. Like most American Jews, I don't do much outside of Passover and Hanukah. My Jewishness is much more a matter of cultural heritage than religious belief. I checked online and this inviting non-Jews is apparently a relatively new tradition: there are some people who believe that non-Jews should never participate in a Seder, because it involves sacrificial lamb meat. The rabbinical consensus seems to be that since the Romans destroyed the Temple there's been no such thing as true sacrificial lamb, and Paschal lamb is just a tasty symbol.

The reason I'm telling you about our tradition of sharing Passover is to note that we do not challenge the separate identities of our non-Jewish friends. We do not ask them to believe in our god or pray to him. We do not ask them to believe the plagues and miracles. We don't give them a hard time if they fail to use the proper forms of addressing our god, including capitalization.

We simply ask our friends to accept the historical aspects of the story, and to reassure us that they do not approve of enslaving minority populations. We give them the opportunity to reaffirm their acceptance of us as friends and neighbors, deserving of respect and equal treatment.

I propose that we as trans people do the same with the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. This is a day (November 20), when we talk about those of us who have been killed, for being trans and presenting as women, and often for being poor at the same time, for not being white, for being immigrants, for loving men and having sex with men.

We trans people are diverse, but we have a lot in common with each other and with lesbians, gay men and bisexuals. Among our family, friends, spouses and lovers, there are many people who share goals with us. Those are the people we want to have by our sides when we are fighting for our goals, celebrating our lives, or supporting each other. Like most trans people I know, there are times when I want to be treated like my target gender (a woman), with the appropriate pronouns and facilities. These are the people who are most likely to treat me this way.

The problem is that a lot of trans people treat alliances like they're black and white. You're with us or you're against us. You believe in essentialism and determinism, and you support our entire agenda, or you're worthless. I understand why people use these ideological tests to screen allies: someone who doesn't believe that we're even provisionally women (or men) is likely to bargain away some of our rights. You don't want to depend on people who don't really share your goals.

The key is that alliances are never permanent, and if you act like they are it'll get you into all kinds of trouble. An alliance is not absolute trust, it's just a recognition of shared goals. When you're dealing with goals that aren't shared, the alliance is meaningless.

As I wrote before, there is a large number of people who believe that we shouldn't be killed for being trans. Not killing us is an idea with broad appeal. A lot of those people will not be on board with free surgery on demand, or birth certificate changes, bathroom rights or even using our preferred pronouns. But they are on board with not killing trans people. If we don't let them show it, that's our loss.

We should follow Incohate Erica's principle of nihil de nobis sine nobis: feminine spectrum trans people who are poor, nonwhite, immigrants and sex workers should be at the center of any Day of Remembrance activities. They, not me, not other bloggers and authors, and not the leaders of mainstream service and advocacy organizations, are the ones most at risk, and they should be doing most of the talking. And their loved ones, who also suffer greatly, should share center stage.

We trans people who are not most at risk should participate too, out of solidarity and because every once in a while one of us gets killed too. Our dependable allies should be there too. But on this day, and on this day most of all, we should reach out beyond our normal alliances and build new alliances around the shared principle of not killing us.

This year Queens Pride House observed the Day of Remembrance a day late, on November 21. I attended, and I invited a friend who is not trans or LGB, but who has a good heart. If you're trans, I hope you will consider doing the same next year. If you're not trans, check with your local Day of Remembrance organizers to see if you'd be welcome. And consider writing a blog post or an editorial that will reach people who might not normally think about this issue, making it clear that you don't think anyone should be killing us. They need to hear that.

Originally posted at my personal Trans Blog.

-Angus "Andrea" Grieve-Smith

Transgender Day of Remembrance-Vigil Speech

November 20, 2008
Portland State University
Portland, Oregon

My name is Jenn Burleton and I am the Founder and Executive Director of TransActive. I am the wife, spouse, partner and significant other of the woman with whom I’ve shared my life for the past 26 years. We have been the foster parents of two transgender youth.

In the aftermath of the 2004 Indonesian tsunami, I traveled to Phuket, Thailand and volunteered whatever talents, skills and abilities I could to the recovery effort. I am old enough to have marched with Jesse Jackson, Ralph Abernathy and James Groppi in the fight for civil rights and fair housing in the late 60’s and I am young enough to have voted enthusiastically, idealistically and teary-eyed for President Elect Barack Hussein Obama. I am a middle aged, middle class social liberal.

My name is Jenn Burleton; I am a woman who happens to be transgender and today just happens to be my birthday. It has always been a special time of reflection for me.

Early on, it was the yardstick against which I measured the time it was taking my mother to accept and support the little girl that lived within me. During my teen years, it became the hourglass through which the sand that was my changing body flowed. And in adulthood, it is the day on which I take stock of how far we’ve come as a culture and how far we still have to go with regards to gender identity and expression.

Since 1999, November 20th has been the day we set aside to remember our sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, lovers, companions, friends and total strangers whose lives were cut short by violence, ignorance, misogyny and fear. This is our day to honor and remember those who died simply because they were or were perceived to be sharing our transgender umbrella.

We know that at least one trans person dies violently every month. Many of these murders remain unsolved. This does not include those who take their own lives after having been slowly but surely emotionally assassinated by intolerance, indifference, poverty and isolation. Those of us who share, to one degree or another, a trans identity are the survivors… and when I did the math with regard to my own life, I realized how very fortunate I have been. As of today, I’ve survived 496 months since first coming out as transgender at 12 years of age.

Lawrence King was not as fortunate.

I did not have the privilege of knowing Larry in life; however I did spend several weeks earlier this year in Oxnard, California speaking with Larry’s friends, teachers, counselors, mentors and neighbors.

Joined by my friends and colleagues, Hayley Klug, Mariette Pathy Allen and Esther Griffin, I met with school administrators, the Mayor of Oxnard and even Larry’s father and family members of the boy who shot Larry. I have taught classes at E.O Green Middle School… 20 feet from classroom #42 in which Larry was shot in the head twice from behind at close range. Several of the students who were there that day were in the classes I taught.

You may have read that Larry was a troubled and flamboyant gay teen who liked to wear women’s clothing and harass straight boys. That Larry flaunted his sexuality. That one of the boys Larry liked finally wouldn’t take it anymore and brought a gun to school and shot Larry twice in the head as Larry sat at a desk in the computer lab.

I’m here to tell you that the only true part of any of that, is that one of the boys Larry liked brought a gun to school and shot Larry twice in the head. The remainder is nothing more than a cisgender-centric manipulation of Larry King’s trans identity in order to fit his death into a politically useful, binary gendered model of what homophobic violence is.

An article in The Advocate even suggested that support and encouragement for Larry’s overtly feminine gender identity and expression and his presumptively "gay" sexual orientation contributed to Larry’s death. It’s time for the hijacking of Larry King’s identity to stop. Larry, who told friends he preferred the name “Letitia”, was transgender.

It’s true that Letitia had male anatomy and at 15 was boy crazy (as are many straight girls at that age). But as many of us in this audience already understand, our identity… her identity existed between her ears and not between her thighs. The inability of some cisgender people in ALL communities to understand and respect that simple fact lies at the center of the identity theft that Letitia King was subjected to in life and most tragically, in death.

Letitia ’s life was complex, challenging, inspiring and, in the days prior to her murder, even joyous.

Born on January 13, 1993, Letitia turned fifteen one month prior to being killed. She had been taunted, harassed and abused for being feminine from elementary school on. Long before she may have even had a sexual orientation, Letitia understood that non-conforming gender expression is at the core of LGBT oppression. And yet, this small for her age child never backed down from being who she was.

Everyone who knew Letitia said that the weeks after she began fully expressing her true gender identity were the happiest of her life. Far from being the outcast some have portrayed her to be, Letitia had many friends at school, mostly other girls, and was well-liked by many in the school faculty and staff.

She loved butterflies. A child after my own heart, she loved the music of Crosby, Still & Nash. Her favorite song though, was “Lean On Me”, which she confidently told her chorus teacher she wanted to sing the solo on at the Spring 2008 school concert.

Letitia was described as a sweet child who befriended stray animals. Together with her adoptive mother, she crocheted scarves to send to the troops in Afghanistan and she loved Archie, the dinosaur-sized therapy dog at Casa Pacifica, the residential care center she was staying in at the time of her death. When asked how she withstood the teasing, bullying, harassment, physical and emotional abuse of others, including possibly members of her family, Letitia would simply say; “I am what I am.”

While some have tried to co-opt, manipulate, pigeon-hole and minimize Letitia’s identity in order to serve political or social causes, the brilliance of who she was lights the way out of the shadows for those who were fortunate enough to have known her. Averi, one of Letitia’s friends wrote this poem a few days after her death:

“I was his friend
And loved him till the end
You all treated him bad
You made him feel so very sad
Now take your life and change it up
So God can fully fill your cup”

Whether one attends a church that believes in a Supreme Being, or worships as I do at the intersection of equality, justice, respect and hope, we must all keep our cups filled with the compassion needed to understand those who are different than us and the courage to, despite all opposition, stand together not just as men and women of trans experience, but as human beings first and foremost.

Another victim of senseless violence, Martin Luther King, once said:

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

We owe it to those we remember today, to Letitia King, to Cameron McWilliams who took his own life at age 10 after telling his mother he wanted to be a girl, to Ian Benson and Gwen Araujo, to Brandon Teena and Barry Winchell. To the transgender children of today and tomorrow whose quality of life and whose very lives hang in the balance of what we do on their behalf in the days, weeks, months and years to come.

To each of us who has traveled our own unique road to where we are, and to where we’re going. To all of these and to those whose names and lives may never be known, let us remember… and let us promise them that from this day forward, we will never again be silent about the things that matter.

Peace.

Jenn Burleton
Executive Director
TransActive

On Eve of the Day of Remembrance: Criminal Justice and Our Communities

This is the opening of a recent AP report on the resurgence of anti-black racism, since Obama's election:

"Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting "Assassinate Obama." Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars. Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America. From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders. There have been "hundreds" of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes."

I'm writing past midnight, having just taken part in a discussion on anti-trans hate crimes for Gender Blender Radio, hosted by Jacob Andersonn-Minshall and Rebecca Nay. This morning, I finished a quick newletter piece about the criminal justice issues facing transgender people for the Mass. Lesbian and Gay Bar Association newsletter. Earlier this week I sent someone a copy of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project report on violence against trans and intersex people in prisons, It's War In Here. Apparently, every November, I spend time immersed in thinking about crime and violence.

Perhaps it's obvious, but I think it might be worth stating: even as we mourn those of us who have been killed or hurt by hate crimes, dealing with hate crimes is not enough.

Central to the transgender civil rights agenda must be a robust and multi-faceted approach to reforming the criminal justice system and reducing violence in society. As a community, we experience extraordinarily high rates of so-called "ordinary" crimes, not just hate crimes. Not surprisingly, many of us are reluctant to report crimes for fear of retaliation and police harrassment. If we are incarcerated, we are likely to be subject to horrific violence and are at high risk of being denied proper medical care.

Not surpisingly, many of our concerns are shared by non-transgender communities of color. One cannot have a society with a substantial history of complex discrimination, human exploitation, and serious disparities in wealth and life opportunities and expect otherwise.

In turn, as the racist backlash to Obama's election reminds us, we have everything to lose if we fail not only to fight transphobia, but to fight racism and other intersecting oppressions.

Duanna Johnson

Duanna Johnson was murdered Sunday night.

You may remember her as the woman who pressed charges after dealing with harassment by Memphis police.

She was shot execution style while on her "usual corner."

I'm tired of this.

I want there to be no reason for the Transgender Day of Remembrance. I want there to be no new names on that goddamn list.

I hope her mother, and her family, and her friends, find peace, and that she has too.

Transgender Day of Remembrance in San Francisco, 11-20-2007

After speaking briefly at nearly every San Francisco TDOR event since its inception, last year I was invited to speak at the San Jose, CA event with Sylvia Guerrero, which was very sweet. This year I was asked back to San Francisco, and instead the typical "couple of minutes-worth" most speakers have, I was given about 15 minutes, which I considered a great honor. JoAnne Keatley and Yavante M. Thomas-Guess were the chief organizers, and they wanted me to do double duty, first speaking about the history of the event, and then (after some other speakers) setting the tone for the reading of the names. I decided to write out my remarks, and afterward Robert Haaland asked if I could email a copy of the speech to him, which I did. Imagine my surprise yesterday when Helen Boyd asked me to post the link to the speech on this blog! I had no idea it had been published by The Sentinel, with photos from the event and the candlelight march that followed the ceremony at the San Francisco LGBT Center. I had to ask Helen to send me the link first! So here it is, if you want to take a look: http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=7230 You can tell where the second part comes in, where I stop talking about political implications and start talking about the experience of death. Right after that they read the names. It was very moving. I can't actually say I hope you enjoy reading this piece, but I did want to share it with you.

Transgender Day of Remembrance 2007

For this year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance, FORGE, a group out of Wisconsin, has released two new handouts. One is about keeping yourself safe as a trans person - or really as any person. It includes tips like wearing clothes that aren’t restrictive and making sure you carry a cellphone.

But more impressively, at least to me, is a document on the friends, family, & partners of trans people who have been the victims of violence either against trans people or for defending trans people or for being partnered to trans people - and in one case, only for being assumed to be gender variant.

I’m especially pleased to see a group create this printout as I have been, in the past, told that I can’t use the word “we” when talking about TDOR precisely because I’m not trans. But as the FORGE document more than indicates, those of us who are partners or SOFFAs are also at risk when transphobia walks the streets.

Have a safe Day of Remembrance. Honor the lives of those who we have lost, and tomorrow, celebrate all of your own victories and those of other trans people in your life. We have a lot to celebrate as a community as well, despite the violence and hate that is sometimes directed our way. I’ll post tomorrow to allow anyone to add their own personal victories, as well.