The alter

Friday I went to the Trans Day of Remembrance event in Oakland, which was beautifully situated in Preservation Park.  It was, of course, an intense memorial, where the main event was the reading of the names of trans people who had died, often brutally, the year before.

Particularly painful was the need to add another name, as the night before a transgendered woman, Cassidy Porter, had been shot in Hollywood, California. She was from Fremont. In the article seeking the suspect, the headline loudly declares that she was a known prostitute, like that should even matter (I'll be writing on this later). This is why I attended on Friday, meeting with other members of SWOP- trans women and other CAMAB (coercively assigned male at birth, though this term is also considered problematic) individuals around the globe often go into sex work to support themselves and/or get the medical assistance they need. Many of the names were from Central and South America- most were from Brazil. Far too many died on the streets, often nameless and ageless. Reading the details on this list are horrific and triggering- the number of women who died brutally, their bodies burned and beaten beyond recognition, breaks my heart.

It's important, too, in my opinion, to notice that an overwhelming majority of the names on this list, this year and every year, are trans women. These women deal with violence and the threat of violence daily- not just physical, but systematic, as well. There's often not health care earmarked for trans people, and statistics from clinics often just refer to trans women as men who have sex with men, and trans men as lesbians. That sort of misrepresentation adds to the difficultly in getting proper funding for projects that seek to help trans women. That's just one example- there's unfortunately plenty others.

Reading of the names in Oakland

I've not talked a lot about this on my blog before, but my ex-husband was born female. He used to identify as trans, though I'm not sure if he does now- after transitioning he didn't really feel like he belonged in queer spaces anymore, as he identified primarily as a straight man. One thing that I used to get angry with him about was his political apathy- once he had gone through the system himself, he didn't really care about how to make it less of a struggle for others. Once he even said to me that he didn't understand why I hated the British National Party so much- a party that is basically a nice way of saying "neonazis". I was shocked that he would defend a group that would probably rather kill him that support his ability to get chest surgery on the NHS. It wasn't his problem anymore once he transitioned.

In a way, I get that. It's exhausting, caring. I saw over a year and a half how ready he was to deal with violence- he was a pub manager, often at troubled pubs where stabbings were just another Saturday night. Being out as trans was not always safe. But apathy is a luxury many trans people don't have- particularly trans women, even more so trans women of colour, and even more sex workers, as the 224 names on the list show. That's double the names this year compared to last. Double.

It's disheartening that the greatest number of POC I have seen at a queer event ever was at the Oakland TDoR. It makes me think hard about if the queer friendly and queer spaces I frequent are doing enough (or anything) to make it safe and comfortable for POC. Probably not.

I've been reflecting on this as it pertains to the word "tranny". I'll admit that I didn't always understand why it wasn't a word that was ok to use, and I educated myself quite a bit thanks to articles such as this one. Even Kelly Osbourne is educating herself, and good for her. But as I reflected on it, I realized that most of the people who were saying how the word "tranny" was ok to use were not, in fact, trans women. Trans women who are, as TDoR shows us, the most likely to end up stabbed to death in a field.

To anyone who wants to argue that people who aren’t trans women have a right to reclaim the word “tranny”, I have an exercise for you: do a Google image search for the word “tranny” and see how many pages in you have to go before you come across a trans guy or other CAFAB trans person. That page number is how many times I want you to go fuck yourself.
-Two Things to Remember When Discussing Transmysogyny

As much as my heart is weighed down by all this, it's also important to tap into the fierce joy that community can bring. There were songs to be sung, songs of anger and revolution and fighting back. If we spend too much time on the sorrow we may become too depressed to fight anymore, we'll just give up and curl up. Sometimes we have to dance, to laugh, to fuck and sing and make art. We'd go crazy otherwise.

I'm not a churchy person, but I want to leave off with a quote from one of the Reverends from the UU church around the corner, who were lovely and supportive of TDoR:

"We've all been too much, too little.

But tonight, we are enough.

Tonight? We are holy".

Light a candle, and remember.