Trans activists call for an end to violence

Victims recalled in annual day of remembrance
Reading aloud from a letter she had recently sent to her mother, who had kicked her out of their home when she came out as trans, a young woman from Minnesota captivated a crowd last weekend gathered to remember trans victims of violence. "It's been a little over a year since I've been gone, but you probably don't care," said the transwoman, who identified herself as Synthia. The letter accuses her mother of introducing Synthia to people as a "problem child" or her "son who is going through one of those phases." Synthia said her mother's hurtful words and behavior place her "on the same level as those bigoted, ignorant, discriminatory, chauvinistic, oppressive hicks that I've been harassed by and both physically and sexually assaulted by this past year. But I'm still here, Mom. I made it."

Synthia was one of several speakers at the ninth annual Transgender Day of Remembrance Nov. 18, an event celebrated by members of the transgender community and their allies around the world to commemorate the lives of transgender murder victims and to demand an end to the violence. The evening began with a group of about 75 people filing out of Boston's Arlington Street Church into the cold night, holding candles, flowers, and placards adorned with the faces of transgender people who were murdered over the past year because of their gender identity. The crowd formed a procession, somberly making its way up Boylston Street, largely silent except for the drummer at the front of the line, who kept a steady beat. When the procession reached Copley Square the crowd formed a ring around the center of the square, flanked by Trinity Church and the Copley Plaza Hotel. Speaking into a microphone hooked up to a portable PA system, people in the circle took turns reading from cards containing the victim names, death dates and causes of death of the 17 known murders, deaths due to denial of medical care, and suicides of transgender people from around the world in the past year, compiled by the Remembering Our Dead Project. They also read the names of the seven known transgender murder victims who have been killed in past years in Massachusetts.

The stories read by the volunteers in the circle painted a brutal portrait of the violence directed against the transgender community, one in which excessive force is the norm and intervention by law enforcement and the courts is rare. Keittirat Longnawa, a transwoman from Thailand, died in January after suffering a beating by nine teenagers, one of whom slashed her throat. Police found her body clad only in jeans, a bra and sandals. That same month Hasan Sabeh, a transwoman working in the fashion industry in Baghdad known to many as Tamara was seized in the street by an Islamic death squad and publicly hanged; her body was later cut down and mutilated.

Closer to home, Erica Keel, a transwoman and sex worker from Philadelphia, was killed in March after she was struck by a car. According to reports in Philadelphia Gay News, witnesses claim the driver had picked up Keel earlier that evening, then threw her from the car and ran over her four times, but police have refused to charge the driver with any crime. In San Pedro, California, Victoria Arellano, a 23-year-old transwoman who immigrated illegally from Mexico, died from complications of AIDS in July while in the custody of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement where she was denied vital AIDS drugs by customs officials. The Washington Post reports that without the drugs she began vomiting blood and that family members claim she died handcuffed to a bed.

Prior to the candlelight vigil the crowd gathered at Arlington Street Church to listen to a series of speakers talk about anti-trans violence. Charito Suarez, who emceed the ceremony, summed up the empowering spirit of the evening in her opening address, telling the audience, "You came as one, but I want you to leave with the power of many, because we are many, many, many."

Bunny Caristi spoke about the media response to the death of her friend, Alston resident Rita Hester, in 1998. Hester's murder, which is still unsolved, prompted the creation of the Day of Remembrance in 1999. In particular she described the coverage by the Boston Herald as "scandalous" and she said they tried to present Hester "as some sort of freak." She decried the lack of response from the general public to both Hester's murder and to the larger issue of violence directed against the transgender community.

"There's a lot of protest nowadays against the war, and that's great. I'd like to see more of that. But there's very little protest, it seems almost like transgender people are the last bastion of safe hate for the fascist people at the top. I'm not saying it's the only one," said Caritas.

Jennifer Levi, attorney for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, talked about Penni Ashe Matz, the trans activist who founded It's Time Massachusetts, a statewide trans advocacy group and the predecessor of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC). Levi said that Matz, who passed away in 2001, inspired her with her drive, and she said urged the audience to take to heart Matz's message "that you can't get what you don't ask for, that anyone can be an activist, and that you don't need a handbook or an invitation to do so, and that anyone who waited for either, or worse, both, risks irrelevance."

Talking politics
The afternoon before the Day of Remembrance ceremony MTPC held a town hall meeting at the church to talk about its political priorities, particularly House Bill 1722, a bill that would add gender identity and expression to the state's anti-discrimination and hate crimes laws. Rep. Carl Sciortino, one of the bill's sponsors, said the bill will likely come before the judiciary committee for a hearing in late January or early February.

Sciortino urged the audience to be uncompromising in their push for full equality. Citing the federal fight for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, in which House leadership passed the bill after stripping out trans-inclusive language, Sciortino said that the LGBT community should always push their lawmakers to deliver the ideal, even if those lawmakers claim it cannot be done.

"Elected officials in that crazy world in the State House or in Congress down in D.C., we're forced sometimes, given circumstances, to make compromises. But as a community you should never, ever say it's okay to compromise on civil rights. If our organizations and we as individuals go to our elected officials say, it's okay to compromise me now as long as we get there eventually, you're not doing justice then to push them to the next level," said Sciortino.

He said that the fight for H.B. 1722 will be challenging and that the LGBT community needs to be prepared to stand firm and push their lawmakers to back full equality for the transgender community.
Holly Ryan, co-chair of MTPC, said the loss of gender identity language in ENDA shows the importance of pushing for those protections at the state level.

"The reason we need to pass this now is the federal government isn't going to protect you now, but the Massachusetts legislature can," said Ryan.

When the judiciary committee hears testimony on the bill, Ryan said MTPC will call on its membership to give their own personal testimony about the impact of discrimination and violence on their own lives. She said one of the key groups needed to testify at the hearing is the parents of transgender people, to show lawmakers the effect of the legislation not only on trans people but on the wider community.

MTPC activists also spoke about other new initiatives. M. Barusch, clerk of the MTPC steering committee, announced the formation of a new transgender legal clinic, which will launch this January. The clinic will provide the opportunity for members of the transgender community who need legal help, whether navigating the legal issues surrounding transitioning or dealing with discrimination issues, to either receive free representation from the law students and attorneys working with the clinic or referrals to other attorneys who can represent them for free or at a reduced cost.

Nancy Nangeroni, communications and web coordinator for MTPC, talked about MTPC's North Shore satellite, the North Shore Transgender Alliance (NSTA), and she said the organization has held meetings in Lowell and Beverly to build support for H.B. 1722.
Richard Juang told the crowd about the Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality, a still-forming initiative to build support within religious communities for transgender rights and to raise awareness about transgender people of faith. He said one goal of the organization is to respond to religious leaders who claim that a transgender identity is incompatible with religious faith.

"We also hope to make visible the presence of, really, of transgender people in communities of faith," said Juang.

Towards the end of the meeting Chic Wagner, co-chair of the Massachusetts Lesbian and Gay Bar Association (MLGBA), called on everyone in the audience to be prepared to commit to the fight for H.B. 1722 not only politically but with their wallets, and he urged people to pressure the LGBT community's advocacy organizations to invest in the fight, as they did in the marriage battle. He said it was particularly important given that the lead organization in the fight, MTPC, operates on a small budget with no paid staff.

"MassEquality required every core partner of that coalition to commit to raising $50,000 per organization in order to make sure that MassEquality had the lifespan that it needed, the resources it needed, and the breadth that it needed to reach every person, to make sure it could support our brave and courageous legislators who sided with us in marriage equality. So as a core partner of MTPC, MLGBA will be challenging all the core partners to commit to whatever fundraising they can. ... It can't just be those of us in the room pulling out spare dollars and quarters and tea change and coffee change. It's got to be about how together we send our message," said Wagner.