IN MEMORIAM: Our Existence
Today is the Transgender Remembrance Day, but don’t expect to hear a proclamation from the POTUS honoring it.
Flags will not be flown at half-staff, businesses and governmental offices will stay open. The vast majority of school children will not be taught about its significance by their teachers.
And the mainstream media will be too busy elsewhere, chasing the latest shiny object. Transgender rights and visibility are yesterday’s news.
That’s why this rare article making an appearance on the CNN news platform is so surprising.
In it, the team of reporters take the time to honor the lives of some of the transgender lives lost to violence since this past January. Eight trans people are profiled, six of them Black, and two in Michigan.
Tahiry Broom was actually from Cleveland and was just visiting the city of Southfield when on February 9, she was shot and killed.
Karmin Wells, though, was a Detroit native and a ballroom legend. She too was the victim of gun violence and as of yet, no suspects in her killing have been identified.
The Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE) have a tragically more exhaustive count of trans deaths so far this year. According to their Trans Remembrance Project, 27 trans people have died a violent death at the hands of others, and 21 other trans people have taken their own lives. And it is acknowledged by all sources that these numbers are a vast undercount. The true total of unnatural trans deaths is much, much higher.
I wish such tabulations were unnecessary. I wish I didn’t have to write this post or note this day in any way. I wish transgender people could just live their lives as every other person in society does. Without intolerance, or harassment, or hatred, directed at them simply for being themselves.
Unlike most other societal prejudices, transphobia enjoys wide acceptance, right on up to federal governmental levels. No other segment of American society is designated in Executive Orders and military service regulations for discrimination and erasure. States, too, have passed their own laws meant to preclude our community from aspects of public activity and restrooms. And many Americans just go along with the edicts and restrictions.
I’m not going to blow smoke up your butt and claim things will eventually get better. I can’t tell you that such blatant bias and institutional hate will pass with time or other people in government office. I don’t know and to be honest, I don’t trust anybody other than us.
Like most other transgender people, I am apprehensive when I journey out into public. I’m constantly looking over my shoulder and trusting my Spidey sense to warn me if danger lurks.
But for the most part, I react with anger at what we are made to experience. I choose not to succumb to the stares and insults and outright prejudice by cowering. I spend every hour of every day trying to find ways to push back and stand strong against the relentless onslaught.
Don’t let the bastards get you down! Live your life as you choose proudly!
And rely on your community. Build friendships within it, reach out to it if you are in need, help out another when they are in need. Network.
The Transgender Day of Remembrance was created in the wake of the murder of Rita Hester in 1998, and the date we set aside for it, November 20th of each year, honors the day in 1995 that Chanelle Pickett was killed.
Remember them today and remember all the transgender people who have died violent deaths. But remember as well to fight back and that a strong community is our greatest defense.
 | A guest post by
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