Transgender Day of Remembrance 2010

http://www.transgenderdor.org/?page_id=1194

The above link is a listing of all of the known trans murder victims since last year's TDOR. Note that the first listed death was on TDOR. It never ends, does it?

That's all I've got right now.

Another Year

Last night my friends and I marked the eleventh Transgender Day of Remembrance. We marched down Brambleton Avenue in Norfolk from Scope down to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial (an obelisk), carrying the signs we made Wednesday. My friend Tracy and a lady named Vega read off the names of the fallen, then we walked back to Scope and adjourned to TACT for refreshments.

There weren't any ugly incidents while we were out. There was an old homeless man we encountered on the way back. I think he wanted to get to know some of us better, but he eventually went on his way. I did get a couple of nice complements on my outfit. I wore my purple sweater from Dots with a grey plaid skirt and purple tights, with a pair of black l.e.i. boots I scored at a thrift store in Churchland last year.

I got lost a couple of times heading to TACT. For some reason, I thought it might be reasonably close to where we marched. It was way, way down Granby Street, almost in Ocean View. I got there just in time for a quick snack and a sit-down with Julian and LLLLL before they kicked us out. I went home and changed for work. Nate had cooked while I was out: barbecue chicken and rice. And he baked brownies! I had one before I came to work, and it was incredible.

Preparing to Remember

Last night I drove over to Norfolk to help put together signs for our TDOR march on Friday. Most of the signs show the names of everyone who has died since this time last year. The names and their stories come from this website:

http://www.transgenderdor.org/


There are a lot of names. I wish I could say I was surprised. What did surprise me was how many of the fallen are unidentified, especially in Central and South America. It's like without names, these people didn't exist. That hurts as much as their dying. There was another murder this past weekend in Puerto Rico. The suspect went looking for a "date" in the red light district, picked up the victim, then flipped out when he discovered she was male. He then proceeded to decapitate her and chop off her limbs. When the case first came to light over the weekend, a detective in PR was quoted as saying

"Someone like that, who does those kind of things, and goes out in public, knows full well that this might happen to him."

Makes it sound like she was asking for it. I've been lucky. I haven't seen a whole lot of violence in my life, and haven't experienced anything worse than name-calling when I was out as myself. I wish there was something I could do about it.

Transgender Day of Remembrance

November 20th is the next Transgender Day of Remembrance. Attending a TDOR event last year is how I connected with my support group. The practice started in 1999 to commemorate the death in 1998 of Rita Hester, a transwoman in Boston, MA. As we make strides toward a better future, it's important to remember those who came before us.