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GWEN SMITH
Friday, November 10, 2006
TRANSGENDER VIOLENCE, PARTICULARLY murder, is an epidemic. It is hardly news, as these murders happen on average every two weeks. If you haven’t heard it from me, you’ve likely heard it elsewhere.
The crimes are horrible, often beyond barbaric and more often than not, those who commit them do not serve prison sentences worthy of the crimes they commit, if they are even caught.
I’ve been tracking these murders for nine years, and while each story remains distinct, they can also be an unending litany of death, pain and sorrow. You can pick up any of these stories and wonder how you managed to be so lucky simply to be alive. You may even be lucky enough to note that you did not know the person killed.
There have been three times where I haven’t been so lucky in this regard, turning what were photos offered to me in friendship into an image worthy of an obituary and writing his or her life story while musing on e-mails from the deceased sitting in my e-mail box.
It’s more than just people with whom I’ve been in contact. To borrow from the six-degrees-of-separation theory, the average transgender person is likely no more than two, maybe three places separated from any other transgender person. Assuming this means it is suddenly far more likely that you either know a particular transgender person or a friend of a friend who did.
BEYOND EVEN THIS, many of us who are transgender need only go beyond our own common experiences to realize there is that feeling that many of these deaths could have been our own, or at least could have been the passage of someone close to us who was in a similar situation.
You don’t even need to be transgender. There are those who were viewed as “sissies” who needed to be “toughened up” or “taught a lesson.” There are the partners of transgender women or men, there are those who happened to defend the transgender person standing next to them and, yes, there are even those who had done little more than hold their wives’ purse while she used the restroom. It is not just the out transgender person who can be a target; it is any and all of us.
With one person dying every two weeks, it doesn’t take much to see how high these numbers go in very short order. In a year, 26 people on average are dead. In a decade, that’s 260 transgender people. That’s a lot of people being killed simply because someone had a problem with the way that person looked, acted or maybe even identified.
WE ARE CREATING a world that is likely going to grow more dangerous for transgender people before it becomes better and, yes, more people are likely to be killed before things change.
Regular Blade readers have heard me talk about all this before, but hear me out this one additional time. We need each other, we need to stand together and work for change. This will not get any better if we stand on the sidelines, nor will change come without a catalyst. It is incumbent on each of us to step forward, if not for ourselves, for all those like us who could be the next victim of anti-transgender violence.
It’s a simple equation: stand up for change or live with a high chance of being murdered. I assume most folks prefer to live. It doesn’t take a whole lot to at least try to make a change. Speak your truth to those around you. Write a letter to the editor. Heck, just show up at a Transgender Day of Remembrance or similar event and stand with others to say, “No more” to anti-transgender violence.
If we do not stand up, it truly is as good as saying that we accept these murders, that we even might condone the deaths of those like us. I’m not willing to accept this rate of murder, nor do I think any of us should. This is why I keep talking about this, and why I will do so again. It’s the least we can do to effect change.
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