Exclusive Video: Candis Cayne Discusses Being Out as Transgender in Hollywood
November 20, 2009
In observance of Transgender Day of Remembrance, GLAAD’s Entertainment Media team is proud to bring you an exclusive video of fabulously multi-talented performer Candis Cayne sharing her experiences in Hollywood as a transgender actress.Candis guest starred on this week’s episode of Nip/Tuck on FX and is best known for her groundbreaking role as Carmelita on ABC’s Dirty Sexy Money. As the first transgender actress to play a recurring transgender character on network primetime television, Candis has been a trailblazer in increasing the visibility of the transgender community. Candis recently shot a pilot called Yes, We Candis and can be seen performing every Monday night at The Abbey in West Hollywood.
Related Posts:What Does Transgender Day of Remembrance Mean to You – Q&A with Ethan St. Pierre
November 20, 2009
Ethan St. Pierre is an FtM transsexual gender activist who has been lobbying Congress on behalf of hate crime victims and survivors since 1991. Ethan is a board member of Families United Against Hate, Massachusetts Anti-violence Project, the garden of peace memorial, and works with the Remembering Our Dead Project as coordinator of The International Transgender Day of Remembrance, investigating and updating the statistics of those who are murdered as a result of anti-transgender hatred or bias.
Ethan is also the founder and creator of the TransFM internet broadcasting network www.TransFM.org (temporary website is set up at www.transfm.squarespace.com . You can find his recorded podcasts at www.radicalguy.podomatic.com and www.archive.org.
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What does TDOR mean to you?
That’s a very good question and a really hard one. It means a lot of things. Transgender Day of Remembrance is a day when we come together to remember those that we’ve lost, but it also reminds us of how unsafe we are and how we are targets of violence – and that nobody is really safe from it. If you’re a trans person, especially if you’re an unemployed trans person out on the street, there’s a really good chance you’re going to lose your life.
It reminds me how unsafe we are. And it reminds me how much work we have to do to educate people so that it doesn’t keep happening.
Can you tell me how you got your start as a transgender activist? What has motivated you to continue to focus on transgender issues?
Before I began transitioning, in 1995, my aunt Deborah Forte, a transgender woman, was murdered. She had transitioned the year I was born. At the time I didn’t know anything about trans issues. I was really clueless that trans people had different issues from lesbian and gay people. When my aunt was murdered, it was a big shock – to know that someone murdered her because she was trans. It was a nightmare. Her attacker killed her very violently. He fled from the police for two weeks, but after his parents talked him into turning himself in, they let him out on bail, and he walked around for a year-and-a-half before trial. Then at the trial he bargained with the prosecutor and got 15-years-to-life. He’s up for parole next year. And I’m thinking, “Wow. This just can’t be.” It was obvious that her life just wasn’t valued.
So I began lobbying when I was living as a woman. I just couldn’t stand that there were so many families out there dealing with what my family went through in losing my aunt. I went to Congress, and I thought – being so naïve – if I could just get them to hear my story, they would change, but they didn’t care. They’d just sit there and nod. To see where we were when I first started lobbying to where we’ve come today is just an amazing thing. To hear a president say the word transgender is amazing to me. I did not think I’d get to see an inclusive hate-crimes bill passed.
What do you think are the most pressing concerns for trans communities today?
Employment non-discrimination. When we were left out of that legislation, and told this is going to move forward and you are not going to be in it, we were being told, “We don’t want you around.” To not have the right to be employed is to not have the right to live. To not have the right to be employed is to be sentenced to death.
I got fired from my job as a security manager for transitioning. I was very lucky to have a family and a partner who supported me, but if I were on my own, I could have lost everything. I would be homeless. They specifically fired me for being trans. They actually told me I was no longer wanted there because of my gender transition. They knew there were no laws protecting me, and that’s why they said that. They specifically fired me for being transgender.
November 5th was the hearing on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in the Senate. And they didn’t even schedule a transgender person to get up and speak. That’s the other thing that bothers me. So few people I know who have faced employment discrimination or lost transgender family members have ever gotten to talk to their senator. They seem to go out of their way to make us invisible. It’s very frustrating. And the Senate hearing was equally frustrating.
You put in a lot of time updating the TransgenderDOR website, which Gwen Smith began. Have you noticed certain trends in tracking our losses over the years?
The trend is that the people we are losing are getting younger. Perhaps it is because people are transitioning at younger ages now. Younger people are always more at-risk. When I was young, I was involved in a lot of risky behavior, and I’m not blaming the victim by any means, but being any type of a queer person, you have to be more careful than everybody else, because some people just really want to kill us. I know that sounds paranoid, but having tracked this, I’ve seen its reality.
And the Day of Remembrance list is all people who are brutally murdered. That’s always consistent. The attacker is trying to make that trans person go away completely. It’s very, very violent. Also, even if media reports don’t always include pictures of the victims, I still believe that this is affecting transgender people of color more than any other group in the United States. Probably the hardest thing to be in this country is a transwoman of color.
But I’m starting to see a difference in how the lives of trans people are being treated in their deaths. In the case of Angie Zapata, what struck me most was how the case was being prosecuted very heavily. The killer was actually shocked that he was not being given a medal, that he was being treated like this for killing a trans person. Think about the difference in 15 years between when my aunt was murdered, how our family, how her death, how her killer was treated, and how that has changed drastically.
Tell me a little bit about TransFM Radio: How did that project start, and what has it become?
I started that in February 2003. I had been a very big fan of GenderTalk, a Boston-based radio talk show hosted by Nancy Nangeroni and her partner Gordene MacKenzie. (GenderTalk received a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding LGBT Radio in 2000.) Their guests were just great, and for that hour I could listen to the show, I felt so at home. And I said to myself, “We need more of this.” So I started doing TransFM as a show, and I made it lighthearted – because I thought we needed more comedy as a movement. The more I really got involved with the politics of activism, though, the more serious it became, and it morphed into a show focused on simply telling the truth.
I started to invite other people to do their own podcasts, and it turned into a network. We need so much educating – we need to educate each other. Everyone on TransFM is being very honest and out there for the sake of educating each other. I’ve interviewed everyone from Calpernia Addams to Kate Bornstein – everyone you can possibly think of from our movement, and they’ve all been so awesome.
TransFM is global because it’s Internet based, and I have listeners in 30 countries. All our episodes are free and streaming 24/7. To listen, go to www.Live365.com/ethanstp.
Something to note: over the holidays – any family-oriented holiday when a queer person might feel lonely – we stream from early in the morning till midnight. We keep our phone lines for anyone who just wants to talk, on the air or off the air. And we feature the “13 Days of Christmas” from December 13th through midnight on Christmas.
How will you be spending this year’s Day of Remembrance?
I’ll be broadcasting for the DOR that Sunday for the people that live in remote areas. On Friday Nov 20th, I’ll be speaking at an event in Allston, where Rita Hester was murdered. The last two years we’ve held a candlelight vigil marching from the church to her apartment building where she was killed.
I’ll leave you with the thought that this can happen to anyone at any time. I don’t have any qualms about telling the people I love that I love them, no matter how uncomfortable it makes them. The odds of us surviving can be pretty grim.
Related Posts:Nov 20th – The Eleventh Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance
November 20, 2009
GLAAD joins transgender communities and allies around the world today in both honoring the memory of those who are no longer with us and re-committing ourselves to working in their name.
The following poem was written by Bet Power for the Transgender Day of Remembrance held in Amherst, MA, November 20, 2007. It is also available at TransOralHistory.com, a cutting-edge outlet for grassroots trans resources.
TDOR
Every November I am devastated.
I count my people pulled up by the roots
From the gardens of their lives,
Not like harvest in the fullness of fruition
Complete,
But even in a world of abundance
Torn as if worthless weeds yanked young and helpless.
Slashed, broken, trampled, tossed on a pile, debris.
More blows than necessary to kill,
Killed many times over
So their wildness will not return
And their wisdom will not spread,
Invasive to the status quo, the way things are.
Should I be thankful this month that those of us who survive
Come together perennially,
Not to nourish ourselves at a Thanksgiving table of life’s bounty
But to sit shiva funereal,
Eyes welling tears, wailing the names of so many
Discarded ones?
I sit again in solemn ceremony,
My mind wanders, seeking a way out,
Escapes into a hungry vision of people
In procession carrying our autumn’s best.
We bend to pick up all that have grown before,
Lift acorn squash, sweet pumpkins,
Raise rutabaga high,
Remember heirloom tomatoes,
Carry corn stalks and chrysanthemums:
Varieties diverse and complicated.
Hybrids some,
Perfect all
In their ripeness self-fulfilled.
There is an opening in the distance, both exit and entryway.
Reality returns to me:
We are angry and hopeful holding our dead like taproots
As we march towards its light.
Above two columns of unshakeable granite
We read an inscription the marble arch reveals.
Etched in blood its keystone shows one word to us now.
TDOR, both ending and beginning,
It is our door to new freedom
And the word is “Pride.”
© Bet Power, November 2007.
Bet Power is the Director and Curator of the Sexual Minorities Archives, a national collection of LGBTI literature, history, and art since 1974, located in Northampton, MA. He is the founder of the East Coast FTM Group (ECFTMG), monthly peer support for the full spectrum of masculine persons in the transgender community. Power is also a founding organizer of the New England Trans United Pride March & Rally.
Bet Power believes that the antidote to anti-trans violence and murder is Transgender Pride.
What Does Transgender Day of Remembrance Mean To You? – Sassafras Lowrey
November 19, 2009
I’ve struggled to find the words to describe what the Transgender Day Of Remembrance means to me. Each year on November 20th I pause to mourn the loss of so many whose lives have been cut short because of senseless violence fueled by prejudice. This year, like every year, as I read through the names of community members who have died, I find myself thinking about the names that are not on this list – of the dozens if not hundreds of transgender and gender nonconforming homeless teenagers whose names will never be included, because our community has forgotten them before they are even gone.
It is estimated that 40% of homeless youth in the United States identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender (LGBT), and we know that transgender youth, are overrepresented within that percentage. 26% of LGBT youth are kicked out of their homes when they come out; 78% of LGBT youth were removed from or ran way from foster care placements because they were un-welcoming or hostile toward the youth’s sexual orientation and/or gender identity. This is an epidemic that is impacting transgender teenagers in every community across the country regardless of socio-economic class, race, religion, or geographic region.
In every major city across the country there are hundreds of homeless transgender youth sleeping on the streets because they fear bullying and harassment in shelters, or because they have been assaulted and threatened in foster homes. In every suburban and rural area in this country there are transgender youth who are sleeping on friends couches, or living in their cars because they don’t have a home to return to. According to the National Runaway Switchboard, every year 5,000 homeless and runaway youth die from assault, illness, and suicide, and LGBT youth are 7 times more likely to be victims of violent crime than their heterosexual peers. How many of these youth’s names never make it into the names read at candlelit vigils?
If our goal is to ultimately stop violence against transgender people, it is not enough to mourn those whose deaths receive widespread media and community attention. We must also break the cycle of homelessness amongst transgender youth. We must lobby for culturally competent shelters that do not segregate youth based on sex assigned at birth. We must fight for the creation of more LGBT-specific shelters and work to increase and stabilize their funding. Today as we mourn the loss of so many, we must also work to prevent future violence against some of our community’s youngest and most vulnerable members.
Sassafras Lowrey is an internationally award-winning storyteller, author, artist, and educator. She believes that everyone has a story to tell and that the telling of stories is essential in the creation of social change. Sassafras is the editor of the Kicked Out anthology (coming soon from Homofactus Press), which is bringing together the voices of current and former homeless LGBT youth. She is a monthly columnist for Curve magazine, and her prose has been included in numerous anthologies. Sassafras regularly teaches LGBT storytelling workshops at colleges and conferences across the country and lives in NYC with her partner, two cats, and a princess dog. To learn more about Sassafras and her work, visit www.PoMoFreakshow.com
Related Posts:What Does Transgender Day of Remembrance Mean to You? – Monica Roberts
November 18, 2009
Monica Roberts
The Transgender Day of Remembrance exists so that we don’t get so consumed living our own lives, dealing with our own drama and fighting our own battles to live our lives that our fallen brothers and sisters fade from our consciousness. It’s a vehicle to help us remind the world that the people we mourn on this day were somebody’s son, daughter, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, cousin, or friend.
But what does the Transgender Day of Remembrance mean to me personally?
A Transgender Day of Remembrance is the time that this proud, African descended transwoman pauses from dealing with the hustle, bustle and drama of living my life to do as Dr. King so eloquently put it, some ‘hard, solid thinking’ about the transpeople whose lives were cut short due to anti-transgender violence.
I ponder the painful reality that a large segment of the people memorialized on the list are trans people of color. I lament the loss of the potential positive contributions to our societies these fallen transpeople have, would, could and should have been able to make to our various communities.
I remind myself as we add new names to this tragically expanding list to not forget Stephanie Thomas, Ukea Davis, Chanelle Pickett, Ebony Whitaker, Nakhia Williams and Kellie Telesford and scores of others. I keep in mind as I silently pray for them that the people who brutally murdered them either still haven’t been brought to justice or received the equivalent of a legal slap on the wrist for doing so.
It’s also the time I remind myself, there but for the grace of God go I.
The Transgender Day of Remembrance is a time I get to engage in coalition building activities and education efforts with our allies organized around this event. It’s when I get to see the trans people in my local community I may not interface with on a regular basis, but who will show up for a TDOR before going back to living their lives in the shadows.
It’s the time I refocus my energy to the task of continuing to remind people that trans people are part of the diverse mosaic of human life, and pray that the day soon arrives in which a trans person’s life matters as much as a cisgender* person’s life does.
*In her book, Transgender History, Susan Stryker defines cisgender as preferred over nontransgender. The prefix cis means “on the same side as” (that is, the opposite of trans). The idea behind the terms is to resist the way that “woman” or “man” can mean “nontransgender woman” or “nontransgender man” by default. “Cisgender” names the usually unstated assumption of nontransgender status contained in the words “man” and woman.”
Trinity-Award-winning activist Monica Roberts, aka the TransGriot, is a writer, blogger, and lecturer on transgender issues. A passionate advocate for transgender civil rights who has lobbied at the federal, state and local levels, she is a founding member of the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC). She also co-hosted a GLBT themed radio show in her hometown from 1999-2001, founded the Transsistahs-Transbrothas Internet discussion list for African-American transgender people in 2004, and helped organize the 2005 and 2006 Transsistahs-Transbrothas Conferences that took place in Louisville.
Related Posts:Remembering the Need for Accurate Reporting on Trans Stories
November 18, 2009
- Reporting around Tyli’a NaNa Boo Mack’s murder in August 2009 frequently misidentified her
As we honor Transgender Day of Remembrance with a week of reflective and informative blogs, we must also pause to remember the power of the media to shape perceptions about transgender people and the need for fair and inclusive reporting on transgender individuals and their experiences. The media still needs to improve its overall understanding of transgender topics.
Last year the American Journalism Review published a comprehensive overview article on the status of news reporting in the area of transgender issues. The AJR applauded a handful of reports that did present meaningful and rich portraits of transgender issues. However, their predominant message was that news organizations must catch themselves up to speed with their reporting of transgender-related stories.
We at GLAAD agree with Mara Keisling’s observation of “the media’s tendency to sensationalize the trivial and ignore the significant when it comes to reporting on the transgender community.”
Often times reporting of transgender-related stories occurs around instances of extreme anti-transgender violence and/or discrimination. Especially in the context of pressured reporting from the scene of a violent crime against a gender non-conforming person, the standards for journalism remain unacceptably low. Journalists, who struggle to use the correct pronouns and terminology even when their subjects are able to inform them about their identities, have an unfortunate record of disrespecting the names and identities of transgender victims who are no longer able to correct it.
Directly following the recent brutal attack on two transgender women in Washington, D.C., media headlines overwhelmingly identified the victims as either “men” or “transgender males,” both inaccurate reports. Times of crisis are the moments when stories about transgender communities ought to be the most respectful and thoughtful, yet they continue to stand out as the most problematic.
There have, however, been examples of reports inspired by horrific anti-transgender attacks that take the opportunity to explore transgender lives and issues more thoroughly. In its coverage of the conviction of Lateisha Green’s killer in July 2009, the LA Times (for instance) made sure to discuss the larger issues raised by such an attack and provided background on the daily hardships Teish and many transgender women have faced throughout their lives.
GLAAD will continue to advocate for this type of inclusive journalism when it comes to transgender reporting, as we are especially reminded of the great importance of doing so during this week of reflection on our losses.
Remembering Trans Activism: Q & A with Troy Erik
November 17, 2009
Troy Erik
Troy Erik is the president/founder of HANDS ON ADVOCACY GROUP, a 24hr agency assisting people with disability issues, homelessness, domestic violence, hate crimes, police interactions, discrimination, intervening in any situation where the law as been violated, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity. Erik canvasses Los Angeles neighborhoods to observe police interactions with the community, as well as build his caseload for those in need.
Can you tell me a bit about the work you do with the LAPD and how that got started?
There are times when I’ve witnessed something that was inappropriately done. I actually witnessed a group of cops slam a transgender girl on the trunk of her car. I approached one of the cops who arrived after the fact and was told that did not happen and that I was the only one who saw that. I detailed the officers’ car numbers to the captain and now there’s an ongoing investigation about it.
It started because I hear so many stories about the LAPD and I wanted to get involved as much as I could and I wanted to show that we do have some good officers, while continuing to work with those officers who are problematic. Because I have noticed things out here. I’m out here every morning. I’ve seen people getting beaten up. I’ve taken pictures. I’ve seen the blood. I’ve called the police and not gotten anyone to come…or they come an hour later.
I bring the Hollywood vice into organizations to speak about their protocols with the trans community. We got the very first trans training with central division downtown in August of this year, and we’ve done the Hollywood division, and later on this month we’re going to El Monte.
What kind of things do you cover?
The training consists of pronoun usage, identity, gender questions, basically an overview about classifications and how to actually deal with trans men and trans women. It encompasses identity, sexual orientation, names, how they like to be identified. I don’t do the actual training. I’m the liaison. I get the trainers to come in from the Gay and Lesbian Center.
Tell me about your nonprofit - HANDS ON ADVOCACY GROUP.
I started out as an independent advocate. I started out in neighborhoods just talking to people and trying to make things better. I created my own non-profit, Hands on Advocacy Group and we’re hands on. We do a lot of things that people don’t want to do. We go out in the community and ask people if they’re in the need of services. I find a lot of people who can’t read or write, so I help them navigate through the bureaucratic channels to get them the services they need.
I’ve been teaming up with a lot of people who own homes [and are] willing to open their homes to the LGBT community, so we’re housing people now.
The non-profit started in May. I got the final paper work. I’m legit (laughs) I’m legal now. I’m just looking for office space, grants, stuff like that.
What do you feel are the most pressing concerns for the trans and gender nonconforming community?
We have employers that don’t want to hire transgender people. We have transgender people who are immigrants, who are sex workers, who cannot access services. We have gang members who prey on the trans community, who have them doing crimes to get money.
My job is a lot different because I’m out here. I’m seeing things happen. I’m literally in the crossfire. There are times when I have to run just like everybody else has to run. It’s a lot different than a victim going to speak to someone behind a desk who only sees the streets on their way home from work.
I had a transgender girl come up to me and hug me and say ‘help me’ because this particular service provider would not help her because she had the flu. I have a problem with service providers who say ‘We’re here to help the gay and transgender community’ and they turn around and do the opposite.
Today I’m dealing with a bisexual 22-year-old man. He has a leg that’s amputated. He called me last night and told me he needs housing. I don’t want to wait weeks to help him. I got him a place to stay today.
How will you be spending this year’s TDOR?
We’ll start at the Matthew Shepard Triangle, march to Plummer Park and that’s where we’ll have the speakers and the reading of the names. Chaz Bono will be a speaker at the triangle for the dedication of the very first transgender plaque to be stationed at the triangle to memorialize all of those that have been murdered from hate crimes.
I will be bringing the food for everybody. I will celebrate. I requested to have “I Look to You” by Whitney Houston be played after we read the names. I know I will be crying. I see beauty in everybody, so I will celebrate with the living as well as the deceased.
[From http://www.transgenderdor.org/ ]
West Hollywood, California
Friday, November 20, 2009
6:00 PM
The event begins at Matthew Shepard Human Rights Triangle
(Santa Monica Blvd. at Crescent Heights)
where there will be an unveiling of the first Transgender Memorial Plaque,
commemorating those who have been murdered due to anti-transgender
violence and hatred.
For more information, please contact Karina Samala at 213-999-0456.
What Does Transgender Day of Remembrance Mean to You? -Stefanie Rivera
November 17, 2009
Stefanie Rivera
Transgender Day of Remembrance is a day where I can reflect on all the trans folks that have had to endure the hardships for expressing themselves.
To me it always feels like it’s Transgender Day of Remembrance as I am always remembering those who were so close and dear to me who were taken away from us so abruptly through prejudice and violence.
I moved to New York from Los Angeles over ten years ago because of the struggles I was facing during that period in my life.
Homelessness, among other things, was something that a lot of foster children were facing, foster children who were considered damaged goods and not worthy of a warm home and a loving family.
God forbid you were one of the ones who aged out of the system and you happened to be trans.
I always felt like no one understood me and when I ran away to Hollywood I found other [trans] kids who were like me and faced many of the issues and hardships that I was dealing with, A lot of us had to do sex work to put a roof over our heads and food in or bellies. In this cycle, I met a few people who later became good friends of mine.
So imagine how traumatic it was for me to hear one of my friends screaming for help as someone chased her down and brutally slashed her throat and killed her. Imagine how saddened I was to hear years later that another one of my girlfriends who was so kind and childlike was shot in the head and dumped on the side of the road like garbage.
I myself have wondered what has kept me on this earth longer than them. I surely thought I wouldn’t have made it past my 18th birthday, whether someone would take me out or whether I just simply would have given up – but here I am reminiscing on not just the depressing memories but on all the good qualities of those who were taken away by violence. Those were my friends.
I remember how we all looked out for one another and formed our own close-knit family; we’d all chip in for a dilapidated motel room to have a place to sleep, little things like that…we’d go to the movies or simply hangout on good old Santa Monica Blvd and wait for a date or for a cop to come and harass us.
These aren’t glamorous memories, but what I remember is we all had each other’s backs – it was us against the world and we were simply trying to survive. Some of us made it, some of us didn’t, but I’m not bitter and jaded I know that’s just the way life goes.
I remember my friends each and every day and will always remember them. They were taken away from us way too soon and I’m willing to bet if they were still alive you’d want them as a friend too.
Stefanie Gisselle Rivera currently works as an Interpreter for Sylvia Rivera Law Project and the Prisoners Rights Project. She and her older sister, Elizabeth Marie Rivera-Valentine, also a transwoman were featured on PBS In the Life: Beauty On the Black Market discussing the dangers of silicone pumping. Rivera has also appeared in the media and in ad campaigns advocating for the rights of the transgender community, speaking out about having to do sex work as a means to survive and her experiences being incarcerated for 3 years in a men’s prison.
Related Posts:Law & Social Change: The True Significance of the Transgender Day of Remembrance
November 16, 2009
Pauline Park
On a solemn occasion such as this, when we remember those we have lost to violence and hate, it is important to understand precisely what legislation and law can and cannot do. Non-discrimination laws – such as the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) and the Dignity for All Students Act (DASA), both currently pending in the New York state legislature – can help protect us from discrimination and provide legal redress, but they cannot eliminate discrimination. Hate crimes laws – such as the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act (LLEEA), the federal hate crimes bill signed into law by President Barack Obama earlier this month – can help reduce hate crimes against transgendered* people but cannot eliminate hate crimes.
Law is an important but a weak tool of social change. Without public support, legal change cannot alone fundamentally alter the reality of our lives as LGBT people. It is only through a change of hearts and minds that we can significantly change the grim reality that greets many members of our community as they try to make their way in a still-hostile society.
But in addition to providing legal recourse to the victim, what law can do is to send a signal to those who would commit discrimination or hate crimes that such acts are unacceptable, and so enactment of transgender-inclusive statutes can powerful influence the governing discourse of social relations with regard to how to treat transgendered and gender-variant people.
Our philosophy at the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA) is to view law as a tool to educate the public as well as a means of providing transgendered and gender-variant people with legal redress. Just as we must pursue legal change to protect transgendered and gender-variant people from discrimination, we must use legislation and litigation to educate the public so that members of the public to increase understanding of the pervasive discrimination and violence that transgendered and gender-variant people still face, even in those cities, counties and states with transgender-inclusive non-discrimination and hate crimes laws.
The challenge for us is not only the political challenge of getting legislation through city councils, county and state legislatures, and Congress; it is also the challenge of winning the hearts and minds of our family members, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and fellow citizens. So as we commemorate the Transgender Day of Remembrance, in remembrance of all those we have lost to violence and hate, let us join together in re-committing ourselves to that task.
…..
*While GLAAD advocates the use of the term transgender over trangendered, we recognize and respect the preference of many activists for the latter.
Pauline Park is chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy and led the campaign for the New York City transgender rights law enacted in 2002. She also serves as vice-president of the board of directors of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund.
Related Posts:An Introduction to Transgender Day of Remembrance 2009
November 16, 2009
People around the world will be observing the eleventh annual Transgender Day of Remembrance this Friday, Nov 20. To commemorate the day, GLAAD and our guest bloggers will be writing about issues relevant to the Day of Remembrance throughout the week. Check the National News section of GLAADblog frequently to view the series of guest contributions.
T
his Friday marks the annual observance of the Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day reserved to honor the lives lost to anti-transgender prejudice and violence. Individuals and communities observe the Transgender Day of Remembrance in many different ways. There is always a mix of silent personal reflections, vocal community demonstrations, remembering the loss and pain of the past year, and looking forward to make the next years safer for all transgender and gender non-conforming people.
The Transgender Day of Remembrance originated as a local response to the brutal murder of Rita Hester, a highly visible transgender woman and community-educator in Boston in 1998. Rita was stabbed 20 times in her apartment on Saturday, Nov 28th. Police rushed her to the hospital, but she went into cardiac arrest and could not be revived. Rita’s murderer(s) have still not been found.
This tragedy, so similar to previous attacks on transgender communities, inspired Gwendolyn Ann Smith to coordinate a vigil in 1999, which became the first Transgender Day of Remembrance event. To record the names of those lost to anti-transgender violence, Smith also launched the Remembering Our Dead project, which is kept updated to this day at www.transgenderdor.org. The list of victims honored on the site has grown to just over 300.
Candlelight vigils, rallies, public actions, and events at local community centers will be taking place across the country (and internationally) on Friday the 20th. For a comprehensive listing of events and locations visit www.transgenderdor.org. GLAAD is encouraging journalists to highlight the Day of Remembrance with stories about the pervasive violence, discrimination, and prejudice transgender and gender non-conforming people face in our society. We also encourage stories highlighting the diversity and resilience of the community in the face of such hardship and the victories they have won.
This year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance may have cause for more optimism than in the past with the historic passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law on October 28th. This bill is the first piece of federal legislation to include protections for transgender Americans, and it sends a strong message that targeting transgender people for violence is never okay.
For more story ideas and reports on hate violence, you can view our 2009 Transgender Day of Remembrance Journalist Resource Kit.
Please join GLAAD as we dedicate this week’s blogs to remembering those lost to anti-transgender violence and to exploring what the Transgender Day of Remembrance means to those working for change.
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