I attended PSU's vigil last night in honor of Transgender Day Of Remembrance. Here are some of my thoughts.
Reid V. was the first speaker. He talked about himself quite a bit. He talked about a bunch of middle-aged, white people who are all in long-term-relationships. Some were married. Some had children. And that was the "representation" of the trans community that he gave us. He talked about some of his ally friends and gave little sound-bites from their warm and fuzzy stories of being trans allies. He then compared the experience of a trans ally to that of a transperson themselves. Um Reid, do you really think that the ally risks more than the transperson for being themselves?
Next up was a younger transman from Basic Rights Oregon. He read a piece of slam poetry about how our experiences are thrown away and often "found on a bathroom floor". It was a brilliant piece that expressed the frustrations of living in a system that hates us and yet it got people fired up and wanting to do something too.
Jen B. spoke next. Her opening statement was to repeat her introduction about who she is and some of the things she has done. Apparently the speakers tonight were told it was all about them. She also identified herself as being middle-aged and in a LTR (because, again, that reflects the experience of the whole community, right?). I was astounded by the fact that she had the guts to mention that Nov 20th was her birthday (which elicited a cheer from the crowd). She then went on to talk about her life story and throughout is used a lot of cliched phrases. Eventually, after dropping the names of a bunch of other people she thought everyone would know of, she got around to actually talking about what we were there for. She told the story of Lawrence King (Leticia). Of course, she didn't just tell Leticia's story... she had to insert herself into it too. One really well spoken point in her speech was when she acknowledged that the Trans DOR recognizes those who died at the hands of hate, but that there are also many who have been killed slowly by intolerance until they eventually took their own lives.
After Jen, Rose Sims took the stage in her typical, quiet manner yet loud presence. She read the accounts of several transfolk who we lost in the past year. Rose didn't waste words on herself. She read the stories with emotion and gave a message of honoring them but living so that we don't have to keep adding names each year.
Kendall, from the Q-Center, spoke next. She read the names of the transfolk we were there to remember. I was surprised that instead of just reading the names of those we lost in the last year, she read the list of those who've been reported lost since 1970 to present. The list is enormous and saddening and infuriating. Most of the names are of transwomen. Time and again the name given was simply "unidentified man in women's clothing", "unknown crossdressed male", "unnamed trangender person". These people weren't cared about enough to even have their names- no one went out and found out who they were. When the reading of the list ended, Kendall left the stage in silence and walked back to her seat. Silence. I wanted to scream... WAIT! Silence is what contributed to the deaths of all those transpeople! After hearing that list we shouldn't be silenced; we should be outraged! Why aren't we having a moment of noise instead?
The last speaker was Laura C. She read a speech about being "driven to hope".
Final thoughts- the entire vigil was held safely indoors in an auditorium. It was a quiet and somber event. It was largely unnoticed except by those in attendance. If those of us who already know about trans struggles are the only ones remembering those we've lost, does the vigil do any good? Yes, we got a community together (even if that community wasn't given a very accurate representation through the speakers). How many people left there last night, though, and didn't have any more plans for doing something than when they got there? Was the community strengthened or just brought together for a couple of hours?
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