#tdor2013

[theechrysalisamidst]

#TDOR2013 throwback. Oh, the revelations had during this time. #WhyIRanOutOfPride #TRANSgressions (at Evergreen Health Services of WNY)

[exhaustedpastel]

A girl and a guy switch clothes for Trans-awareness Day 

[perpetuallurkernazanin]

Why might trans women be offended by cis men who do drag for humor? (trigger warning: transmisogyny, slurs, transphobic violence)

Inspired by Dan Savage's recent condescending non-answer to a question here: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=18203115#comment-18225866

And also inspired by this: http://fuckyeahrupaulsdragrace.tumblr.com/post/49948381517

Why would some trans women be offended by cis men who do drag for humor? I consulted with a bi trans woman I know and did some online investigating in order to venture an answer. In part, the widening cultural exposure to drag through RuPaul's Drag Race may explain the offense. RuPaul has been blatantly dismissive of trans women and contributed to cultural ignorance that makes their lives more difficult that it already was. RuPaul supports the use of the common and hurtful slur “tranny,” and what’s worse, when hearing that Lance Bass had apologized for using the word publicly, RuPaul’s response was, “I love the word ‘tranny’… and I hate the fact that Bass has apologized. I wish he would have said, ‘F-you, you tranny jerk!’” (http://lgbtweekly.com/2013/02/14/rupaul-both-trans-positive-and-trans-negative/)

Let's break this down: RuPaul is not personally reclaiming the word in this statement, but encouraging a famous rich white cis man to say something dismissive and degrading to a trans person.

Debate does exist in the trans community about the reclamation of the word. Eg, prominent trans / “gender outlaw” advocate Kate Bornstein posits that it was originally used to create common ground between trans women and drag queens in Australia, and so is available for positive reclamation (http://katebornstein.typepad.com/kate_bornsteins_blog/2009/07/who-you-calling-a-tranny.html) Trans feminist blogger Quinnae Moongazer writes an articulate and heartfelt rejoinder, saying in part, “You are telling me, Kate, that I am not real, good enough, or even welcome because of my gender, and you condescendingly tell me and many of my sisters that our feelings about the word “tranny”- which are very complex- are invalid.” (http://quinnae.com/2010/11/17/an-open-letter-to-kate-bornstein/). However, the message that cis people like me really need to hear is this one: "If you aren’t trans, whatever your intentions, “tranny” will always sound like a hate word coming from your lips. […] This word belongs to trans female folks who want it and to nobody else. Since trans misogyny is still rampant in the world I’d like to suggest that the rest of us back off of “tranny” for a little while. Let those who have been victimized have some time and space to heal from this word, to interact with it, pick it up, play with it, drop it again, save it for later, or tattoo it on their god damn foreheads if they want. After all, it’s none of my business. " (http://carnalnation.com/content/58040/1067/t-word-taking-transphobic-slur) Let me share a real-life example of what RuPaul’s Drag Race did in the life of one trans woman:”i hate how American culture assumes trans women are drag queens. i hate when people who know or learn i am trans compare me to RuPaul, ask if I love his Drag Race show, or want to know where i perform.” (http://i-am-river.tumblr.com/post/66218034884/i-hate-how-american-culture-assumes-trans-women) I’ve seen RuPaul’s callousness towards trans women spread and cause damage first-hand. A cis friend of mine, a huge fan of RuPaul’s Drag Race, thought her fandom made her some sort of expert on gender and sexual minorities; and so, she referred to actress Laverne Cox as a “lady-man” directly in front of a woman she knew was trans; when I told her the word was offensive, she accused me of “gay soapboxing”.  She apparently felt that being asked to try to understand why terms like “lady-man” and “tranny” are hurtful to trans women is a huge imposition (larger than the oppression that trans people face, I guess?), and appeared to think that transsexuality was some sort of club from which she was being unfairly barred. Can I remind everybody that yesterday, November 20th, was the Transgender Day of Awareness — that sixteen trans people, mostly women, were brutally murdered in the US this year just for existing; worldwide, the number reported is 238. (http://www.transgenderdor.org/memorializing-2013 ; http://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/238-trans-people-murdered-worldwide-in-the-past-year ; http://www.transrespect-transphobia.org/uploads/downloads/2013/TMM-english/TvT-TMM-Tables-2008-12_EN.pdf) These lists are incomplete; for one thing, they don't count people who survived attacks, like the trans woman in DC who was stabbed 40 times this past July (http://www.washingtonblade.com/2013/06/23/transgender-woman-stabbed-repeatedly-in-d-c-attack/). Yes, drag queens are also victims of violence. (http://www.washingtonblade.com/2013/06/25/bystanders-cheer-as-two-women-attack-beat-dc-drag-performer/) And my point in this post is not that drag is inherently bad, or even mostly bad. I simply don’t have enough experience or exposure to make a call. Also, it's certainly possible to enjoy problematic things. Just don't claim RuPaul is some sort of champion of trans rights. The thing about the cavalier attitude of RuPaul and too many cis male crossdressers is that cis male drag queens can take off their costumes and go back to being cis men, and RuPaul can retreat to the safety of money and fame, and the trans women have to live 24/7 with whatever attitudes they’ve engendered in US pop culture consciousness. The debate over word use and the needs of disenfranchised groups takes a modicum of compassion and humility. And RuPaul’s attitude towards a slur that is constantly used to degrade and attack trans women — who transition not for glamor, uniqueness, or to be a superstar, but because it is medically necessary for them — shows none of that. Neither does Dan Savage's answer, as he glibly implies that "freedom for everyone" means making trans women put up and shut up, instead of understanding that "freedom for everyone" is impossible while cis straight men and trans women have astronomically unequal freedom from fear, poverty, and the ability to express opinions, or simply exist, without facing mockery, degradation, and threats of violence.

[audaciaray]

"I Remember" - a video poem screened at the Trans Day of Remembrance Event at the LGBT Center in NYC last night. Very moving, and features many trans women of color, with lines in both English and Spanish. 

[uminotenshi]

Last night I felt really bad because yesterday was TDOR and I had work.

I felt bad because I really wanted to do something to commemorate Transgender Day of Remembrance but I didn't have time to do anything 'special'.

I mean when I was in college I lead the reading of the list of names and lighted candles in the middle of campus one year (which no one in the very white cis gay GSA attended, but that's another story).

And I really couldn't do anything at work because, you know, retail. And I didn't get home from work until around 10:30pm. So by then I was pretty tired.

So I stayed up a little in bed last night, berating myself for not doing anything for these lives that have been taken away from this world.

And then I realized:

I am a living, breathing, Trans* person.

My existence, perseverance, and personal activism is enough.

[erichnpitcher]

Trans Day of Remembrance Speech

Below is the text of my speech from last nights vigil. We had over 100 people attend the vigil at my university and nearly 60 stay for our warm-up in a nearby academic building. The vigil and my talk was a moment when I felt I brought the scholar-activism I am working to cultivate to bear on an important event. Enjoy!

Thank you all for joining us on this cold night so that we might remember those people who cannot be with us tonight. Thank you for making yourself vulnerable to the frigid temperatures and to the pain that comes with hearing the names of those people who have lost their lives due to anti-transgender hatred and violence.

Thank you for joining us tonight and thank you for remembering that we have so much more work still to do.

My whiteness, my middle classness, and my educational background feel conspicuous at an event like this. My being a trans man located in the global north with multiple college degrees in hand, my privilege feels rather conspicuous. But I know it is my privilege that buffer me from anti-transgender bias and hatred. So while I might be marginalized on the basis of my gender identity or sexual orientation, I am buffered by my whiteness, social class, and so on. I am implicated and intimately bound up with what I am about to say. But this is not about me, but who I am and what privileges I have does matter.

Tonight is about anti-transgender hatred, but it is also about the larger systems of oppression to which we are all subjected, to varying degrees.

The people who lost their lives this past year and the people whose memory remains alive as we stand here as a community were also subject to racism, sexism, misogyny, cissexism and the larger interlocking system of oppression that permeates all of human society.

We must be cautious not to say that the names we hear tonight could have been us, or our partner, or our loved ones. At least for some of us, this might be true. But for many of us, this is simply not the case.

We must not misrecognize the vulnerabilities of “others” as our own.

We must not simply say “trans women” are murdered at very high rates, trans people who are more susceptible to this type of violence are likely racially or ethnically marginalized, economically marginalized, and/or marginalized by global position. These experiences of marginalization coupled with the variety of other systemic structures that marginalize the experiences of trans women of color are part of the reasons that, for those of us who are white, middle class, living in the US, educated, are buffered from the violence. We are buffered from this kind of violence because of the privileges we hold.

We must be cautious in how we talk about the people who lost their lives this last year so as to not do what Sherene Razack calls “Stealing the Pain of Others.” By this she means, that we must not obliterate those who have died. We must not replace their images with our own in order to sooth our pain.

We, and I am talking to the white people here tonight, we must not write over these black and brown images with our own political desires. We must not supplant our white image with theirs.

In thinking about stealing the pain of others, perhaps we should consider why is pain the conduit with which we identify with the trans people who lost their lives? Is pain the only avenue for connection that we have with trans women of color? Why do we not engage more deeply with trans communities of color in our everyday lives?

Razack argues that “race has handily enabled us [meaning white folks] to pursue the path of innocence.” In short, we ignore the daily injustices faced by racially minoritzed groups, in the US and abroad, while engaging in witnessing of the atrocity of lost lives, for those of us who are white, we have our privilege to keep us warm at night.

I would urge us, especially to white people, to think about our goals for this vigil. I believe that our goal here tonight is not to steal the pain of others to use for our own political gains and comfort. Rather, our goal is draw attention to the injustices occurring. But also to resist the interlocking systems of oppressions that traverse our bodies and our communities. We must not think only of these issues but once per year. We must resist every day.  

Let us remember that there are trans people and gender non-conforming people who are alive and well, who are resilient and so fucking strong. Let us also remember that we, trans people, are more than statistics in some report, we are real living people. Let us remember also that trans lives matter even or especially those rendered invisible through oppression and our complicity with it. That even amidst untenable circumstances, that trans people thrive, build community, have faith, and have immense amounts of light and love in our lives. We are more than some terrible statistic.

Let us carry forward the radical idea that people have a fundamental human right to live as their true and authentic selves. Or put more simply….People have the right to live.

Let us remember that.

Thank you.

Reference:

Razack, S. (2007). Stealing the pain of others: Reflections on Canadian humanitarian responses. Review of Education, Pedagogy and Cultural Studies 29(4), 375-394. 

[desiree-dx]

had a good time at TDOR. it was nice seeing so many kids being exposed to the LGBT community. the best part was the food omg and the drag dancers. they were so damn good man

[transbrownnonbinaryguy]

heart heavy

I have never felt like trans* fits with me. I think it is because the English language does not move me. It aches me - it makes my stomach churn as I search for words in broken Kutchi and broken Hindi for how I feel I am . I think about my ancestors, what did they call themselves in their mother tongues? I want to tattoo these words on my body so I never lose them again. Do you know what these words are? could you please tell me so I can find home in a place that my heart can feel familiar with?

I think of my trancestors all of the time, not only today. I am specifically talking about the intersectionality of sexism, racism and class (just to name a few); where transmisogyny comes from. I am specifically talking about trans* women of colour, my sisters who fought in order to protect themselves and are in jail at this very moment because the INjustice system is run by power hungry fools who care more about money than about women's lives. It is these positions of power that uphold violence against women on systemic levels. And this is unacceptable. These are the lives of my sisters. These are the lives of my gender bending beautiful families. These are LIVES we are talking about. As a man I want to continuously work & learn how to be a better ally to trans* women of colour because it is this cycle of violence that needs to come to an end.

I met up with my brother today and we lit agarbatti in the community garden. we shared silence. and i could feel rage and sadness and heart heavy. it was a needed silence. I think about all of my people who were murdered at the hands of a system which upholds and supports such oppressive and sexist violence. I emphasize that this is violence (NOT "bullying"). And i think about my people who committed suicide or self harmed. And i think of my people who have been hurting and continue to hurt and carry scars.  I reflected on the movements that continue to carry on - for example,  the climate justice movement and I also find myself asking - WHERE are my people? Are they here? And if they are not, how come? Maybe because we need to rest our bodies or maybe because we don't feel safe or maybe because we are scared or because we don't have the energy & so many other reasons. I want us to reflect on this because when we are working towards building a movement with an anti - oppressive lens, we need to recognize what is missing and we need to tackle why. Today. We need to do this starting now. and we need to commit to do this everyday