Moni's Excellent LI Adventure

I had the honor and pleasure of being the keynote speaker for the LITDOR on Sunday. Even though the invitation was extended months in advance, by the time the actual date approached I was ready for another trip out of Da Ville.

I usually don't like flying the day of my speaking engagements because as a former airline employee, I am intimately familiar with ATC delays and how capricious they can be at times. Air travel can be stress inducing enough without adding the concern that you're going to be delayed for an event you are the one of the participants in, but it worked out this time.

I crawled out of bed at 4 AM to get ready for my flight and when I was satisfied, I woke Dawn up at 4:55 AM to drop me off at the airport. My flight wasn't leaving until 6:10 AM and I already knew from the Bryn Mawr trip that the checkpoint doesn't open until 5:30 AM.

Got checked in at the US Airways counter and as I was clearing the security checkpoint I set off the alarm. I'd forgotten to take off my belt, which has a large metal buckle.

I take it off and as a precaution took off my earrings as well. Once again as I walk through I hear the annoying beep again, and realize at that moment it's the underwire bra I'm wearing that was the culprit. I ended up getting hand wanded and pat down searched by a friendly female TSA officer before I could proceed to my gate.

I finally get to the gate as my regional jet flight is boarding, so my timing is perfect despite the unexpected extra time I spent clearing TSA security. Once I get settled in my seat I pulled out my speech and started reviewing and making corrections to it as we pushed off the gate to begin my airborne journey to Philadelphia and my subsequent connecting flight to Islip.

Had a beautiful late fall morning with a beautiful sunrise as we streaked eastward with plenty of visibility. As we crossed the Appalachian Mountains it got a little bumpy and the cloud cover started thickening up below us. I also noted the thick blanket of snow that had been dropped in some parts of the mountains as we got closer to Philly.

We landed and I made my way to my connecting gate. I noted that this Islip leg was going to be on a Dash-8 turboprop, and the last time I'd flown one of those was on the Pittsburgh-Lexington return leg of my trip back home to bury my grandmother in 2002.

I'm a jet fan, be they regional or big birds. I detest turboprops because of the noise, and to make matters worse my seat was right by the engines.

I also knew we were going to be flying for a few minutes of the flight over the Atlantic Ocean before landing in Islip. While I'm blessed with many talents, swimming isn't one of them.

The flight was uneventful but I was nervous from the time the New Jersey shoreline receded from my view until I saw the welcome sight of the southern Long Island coastline.

We finally land at MacArthur International in Islip and Eileen is there to greet me as I exit into the airport's lobby area. After checking in to my nearby hotel and dropping off my bags we went on a mini tour of Long Island.

My flight arrived early, so Eileen and I had two hours to kill before we met the rest of the LITDOR gang at a restaurant in Centerpoint. I ended up taking a little stroll down the Jones Beach Boardwalk, discussing various trans political and other issues with Eileen before we took off for the restaurant.

We also ended up on the iconic Long Island Expressway for a few minutes and I chuckled when we passed the Amityville exit before we walked into the restaurant a little after 1 PM.

The restaurant was in some rolling, forested hills next to a picturesque lake framed with fall foliage. The food was great but my positive mood took a hit a few minutes later.

I'm the only African-descended person at the table with a group of twenty people and one of the waiters has a pronoun problem only with moi. First time is an accident, second time is deliberate, and the third time after I've advised you not to do so is a major indicator you are disrespecting me. At that point the USS Monica goes on Defcon 1 status and launches verbal Tomahawks at the fool or fools in question.

I politely told him the first time I didn't appreciate being 'sirred'. When he did it the second time, had I been back in Da Ville, I would have politely gone verbally nuclear on his behind, found the manager, told them why and walked out. My hosts were appalled and not too thrilled about it either.

But my pissivity over the Afro-transphobic waiter lessened as the LITDOR gang surprised me with a t-shirt and other Long Island themed gifts since it was my first trip there.


I get dropped off at the hotel after 4 PM to take a nap. I'd been up at this point since 4 AM and definitely needed it. I managed to get almost two hours in before I was awakened by the alarm clock to get ready for the LITDOR service that was starting at 7 PM.

Arianna scooped me up and got me to the church for a LITDOR service was a wonderful blend of music, spoken personal testimonies by various LITDOR members and Native American spirituality.

Then it was my turn to do my speech after a wonderful introduction by Juli, who was at the IFGE convention in Philly for my 2006 Trinity acceptance speech that still gets positive commentary three years later.

I was also surprised and flattered to see a July 2007 poem that I'd written on TransGriot called 'Don't Disrespect Me' printed as part of the program.

Not sure if this keynote speech was on the level of the 2006 IFGE one, but the audience liked it, and that's all I really cared about. I was interrupted by applause once before I finished it.

After the names are read by LITDOR members from various corners of the room and the benediction by Rev. Bigelow, we close the service with a rendition of 'Amazing Grace' before Eileen and I jointly blew out the single large candle resting on the altar draped with a transgender flag different from the Monica Helms designed white pink and blue version to conclude the service.

I found out how much the attendees liked the speech at the reception. One person after another sought me out over the next two hours and told me me how much they enjoyed the speech, TransGriot, or both. I also had the interesting and humbling experience of being asked for my autograph by a Black transman named Christian. As I signed his program he expressed how proud he was to see me standing there and eloquently speak about our fallen brothers and sisters.

Ended up in some substantive conversations with many of the attendees on a wide variety of subjects before heading back to the hotel and get some sleep for the return trip back to Da Ville

Said my goodbyes to Eileen and quietly autographed the extra copy of the speech she had for me before I entered the Islip terminal. This time to avoid what happened in Louisville I made sure that any foundation garments I was wearing didn't have metal in them.

On my PHL layover ran into the same ground personnel who had kicked my Islip flight out the day before. I had a wonderful chat with them before I headed for my gate for my Louisville bound flight.

One of the cool things about the trans community is that your family expands, not contracts. I added some new family members and had a wonderful time in the process despite the solemn reason I was on Long Island in the first place.

Once again, I thank the LITDOR gang for inviting me to speak at their event. I knew I had a tough act to follow in Diego Sanchez and the other keynoters who have graced that event. Looking forward to hanging out with the LITDOR gang sometime and somewhere in the near future.

Already Getting Started On The TDOR 2010 List

We in the international trans community are just wrapping up the many TDOR events we held for 2009, and as Leona Lo reports courtesy of The Guardian, there's already been a transwoman death to possibly kick off our 2010 list.

32 year old Brenda Paes was found dead November 20 in her apartment that she shared with her friend Natalie after a mysterious fire.

But this one has the earmarks of a murder, since her roommate Natalie is one of the people involved in a widening political scandal that eventually forced the October 27 resignation of prominent Italian center-left politician Piero Marrazzo.

The widening scandal is now threatening the center-right government of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The scandal started with four members of the Carabinieri, the Italian paramilitary police force offering for sale to the press a video shot August 2 of a sexual tryst involving the former governor of the Lazio region, which surrounds Rome.

Investigators then discovered a longer video allegedly showing Marrazzo in the company of two transsexual sex workers. Brenda admitted to local magistrates investigating the unfolding drama on November 2 that she recorded the images on her mobile phone.

Brenda was found lying naked on the floor in her bedroom loft next to some packed suitcases. She apparently died of asphyxia after a fire started in a bag of old clothes next to the door.

Arousing particular suspicion in what police described as a complex crime scene was the presence of Brenda’s laptop computer partially covered by water in the sink.

One of the people who also shares the hypothesis that Brenda was murdered is none other than Italy's first trans MP, Vladimir Luxuria.

“I immediately thought it was murder. It made me really angry when I heard them talking about suicide,” Ms. Luxuria said. “The person who ordered it is a powerful individual who feared meeting the same fate as Marrazzo. This is a Mafia-style murder and it sends the message: don’t talk.”

Ms. Luxuria said Brenda was a vulnerable person whose photo and address had been published in the press and who had received no protection despite being a witness in a sensitive political scandal.

“Brenda had her mobile phone stolen two weeks ago. No one seems to have asked whether the phone had value as an object or because of the information stored in its memory,” Ms. Luxuria said. The former MP says she knows at least 10 of her political colleagues who availed themselves of the sexual services of transsexuals.

“The person behind this could just be a single individual, but someone in a very high position. I hope this doesn’t end up as yet another Italian political mystery.”

She and others, including Piero Mazzarro's lawyer are calling for Brenda's roommate Natalie to be put under immediate police protection in the wake of Brenda's death.

But sadly, thanks to an unfolding political scandal, Brenda Paes may have also just become the first name we read at the 2010 TDOR ceremonies.

Back In SDF

What's SDF? The IATA airline code for Da Ville.

Back in town after spending a wonderful Sunday afternoon and evening hanging out on Long Island with Eileen, Kyle, Juli, Barbara, Arianna and the rest of the LITDOR gang. Got to sample a little bit of life on Long island before my speech later that evening.

There was someone videotaping it along with Barbara taking photos, so if I get them or a link to the video of the LITDOR event, I'll put them up in a later post.

Once again, I deeply thank the Eileen and the LITDOR organizing committee for extending the invitation for me to speak at your event and being gracious hosts.

Hope y'all enjoyed the speech as much as I enjoyed delivering it.

By the way, if you want the TransGriot to speak at your events, better get to me early. 2010 will be here before you know it.

My flights back here got in early, and Polar was at the airport to scoop up the TransGriot and take her to lunch.

I'm going to crash for a little while, and will talk to y'all about my excellent Long Island adventure later.

2009 LITDOR Keynote Speech

TransGriot Note: This is the text of the keynote speech I'm giving at this minute for the 2009 LITDOR Service in Centerpoint, LI, NY

Moments before taking the podium at the church, was advised we'd added two more names to be memorialized, so I revised what I originally posted to reflect we were remembering 122 people.

Giving honor to God, my gracious LITDOR hosts, my brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, members of this church congregation, my transgender brothers and sisters, friends and allies of our community.

I have been given the honor of delivering the keynote speech for the 2009 Long Island Transgender Day of Remembrance Service.

I thank you for the opportunity of joining the long list of prominent people in our community who have preceded me in having the chance to do so. Many of those people are ones who I admire, and it’s nice to be included in such lofty company.

I thank Eileen and all the wonderful LITDOR people that I’ve had the pleasure to meet today for extending the invitation. I thank you for doing the hard behind the scenes work, the phone conversations and numerous e-mail exchanges to ensure I would be standing proudly before you today on this not so happy occasion.

One of the things I thought about in the days leading up to my speech tonight and also pondered on the plane ride here is that this event is taking place on the anniversary of another senseless death, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

In his televised June 11, 1963 speech on civil rights, he used the words ‘a moral crisis’ to describe what was going on in the nation at the time..

Well, tonight, we are here to call attention to another moral crisis, the senseless loss of people to anti-transgender violence. Tonight we are going to talk about the 120 people that are no longer here on Planet Earth.

One of those people on the tragically long list we are memorializing this year is Lateisha Green, who was killed in Syracuse, NY six days before TDOR 2008.

We’re going to talk about the 122 senseless deaths that have not only taken away a brother, sister, aunt, uncle, son, daughter or cousin, it has deprived our various communities around the world of the contributions our lost brothers and sisters could have made to those societies.

We know in the trans community we have some amazing people in it who have as we say in my community the skills to pay the bills, assuming we’re ever allowed to show that we can do so.

Well never know if the people that were killed would have gone on to become leading educators, made that scientific breakthrough that advances life for all humanity, created art, become prominent social and political leaders in our various nations, or simply become parents raising a family

We'll never know that because they have been violently taken away from us.

It also causes us to say to ourselves, “there but for the grace of God go I’

I know the question many of us are asking ourselves tonight and have been since we started this ongoing gender journey is. ‘Why?’

Why are people so resistant to us simply living our lives or feel so threatened by the existence of transgender people that they have the misguided belief that they can kill us?

Maybe it’s because the religious leaders who are supposed to help us sort out these moral crises are instead exacerbating the problem.

When you have the leader of the Roman Catholic Church make a Christmas Eve speech in which he states, “humanity needed to listen to the "language of creation" to understand the intended roles of man and woman and behavior beyond traditional heterosexual relations was a "destruction of God’s work"., it’s not surprising that there was an alarming spike of transgender deaths in Roman Catholic dominated countries such as Brazil, Honduras, and Guatemala.


When you have a moderate Islamic cleric such as Malaysia’s Mohamad Asri Zainul Abidin say in an interview transsexuals should be fined or jailed if counseling proves ineffective at deterring them from transition, then follow up that misguided comment up by stating, "We must try to reform them and give them advice. We must not allow them to stray. Imagine if this world were filled with transsexuals -- what would happen to the human race?"

It’s not surprising that the result of such comments by Islamic clerics who share Abidin’s opinions is persecution and killing of transpeople in Muslim countries.

When you have fundamentalist Christians, our modern day Pharisees and Sagicees repeatedly violate the Ninth Commandment of ‘bearing false witness against thy neighbor’ because of their personal transphobia or as part of promoting their regressive right wing political agenda, is it any wonder that we have repeated violations of the Sixth Commandment in regards to transgender people?

In case you’re wondering what the Sixth Commandment states, it’s ‘thou shalt not kill.’

It is the words of these so-called religious leaders that are fueling the dastardly deeds of the people who are killing our trans brothers and sisters.

Well, time to school all the faith based haters out there. Increasing reams of medical evidence and recorded history point to the inescapable conclusion that transpeople are part of the divinely inspired mosaic of human life. The sooner y’all get that through your thick heads, the better life will be for all of us on Planet Earth.

Why is this still happening to transgender people? As I know all too well from my people’s tortured history in the Americas and across the African Diaspora, when you ‘other’ a people, promote lies and half truths about them, refuse to understand and learn about their issues, and deny their humanity, the end result is they begin to die at the hands of the people who are actively denying their humanity.

The funny thing about that is as the Forces of Intolerance continue their nefarious mission to dehumanize transpeople, we fight back even harder to ensure that we call them on it when it happens.

Now that I’ve given you the abridged version to the ‘why’ this is happening, it’s time to move on to our solemn task for this evening.

What we are gathered in this church for this evening is to remember the 122 people who lives have sadly been extinguished by anti-transgender violence.

122 people. It’s triple the number we memorialized in 2008.

122 people having candles being lit for them during this service to symbolize each one of the lives that was taken away from us far too soon.

122 people too many

For some of the people we memorialize, we won’t even get the opportunity of reading their names because they were either killed and dumped on the side of a road or for security reason the name of the deceased was not released in order to protect their living relatives.

122 people who died simply because somebody hated them for who they were.

I have to point out that one of the 122 people on this list that we memorialize this year is a cisgender man by the name of Michael Hunt.

He died for the same reason Pfc. Barry Winchell did ten years ago, because his killer didn’t like the fact he fell in love with a transwoman.

Michael Hunt fell in love with Taysia Elzy, and for that he paid with his life.

Dwight DeLee didn’t like the fact that Lateisha Green was daring to live her life in upstate New York openly and unabashedly proud about who she was. A gunshot outside a Syracuse house party fired from a rifle wielded by DeLee wounded her brother Mark and ended her life.

I’m a fan of the science fiction series Battlestar Galactica and I recently viewed the movie entitled The Plan. In one scene Number Six says to Brother Cavil, in regards to the genocidal nuclear sneak attack launched by him and his fellow humanoid robots that destroyed the Twelve Colonies of Mankind and led them on a quest to find a new home on Earth, ‘you can’t declare war on love.’

That’s what I take away from these TDOR 2009 memorial services that took place all around the world on November 20 and here this evening.

We are saying to those who have declared war on transpeople, ‘You cannot declare war on love.’

There is the love our allies have shown for us this week. The love we have shown for each other and we mourn our losses and resolve to work even harder to make the TDOR obsolete. The love that we show for our fallen brothers and sisters.

Love is the most powerful force in the universe, and it endures long after the outer shell of a body that houses our spirits becomes dust that goes back to the earth.

Love is the advantage we have over the Forces of Intolerance and all the other nattering nabobs of negativity who demonize and deny our shared humanity.

It is the love we have for our fallen transbrothers and transsisters that compels us to gather in this church today to mourn their losses, and ensure that we the living never forget the people who died.

Leaving On A Jet Plane...To LI

I'm getting my beauty sleep as you read this right now because in a few hours I'll be rolling out of bed for a long day of travel and eventually being the keynote speaker at tonight's LI Transgender Day Of Remembrance event in Centerpoint, NY.

Looking forward to finally meeting Eileen and all the wonderful folks in LI.

If you're in the New York area and can get there, I'd like to meet and greet some of you wonderful people as well.

See you tonight.

Makes Me Wanna Holler

The last two days I've been participating in panel discussions, putting the finishing touches on a speech for a TDOR event Sunday on Long Island, writing a piece for the glaadBlog that just got published yesterday, and will be attending our local TDOR service tonight.

The classically timeless Marvin Gaye song 'Inner City Blues' that is playing in the background of this YouTube video is encapsulating some of what I'm feeling today



The senseless loss of all these people simply because of who they are really does make me wanna holler.

Never Forget The People Who Died

Never forget the people who died.

That's what the TDOR is all about. To make sure we never forget the people we have lost to anti transgender violence.

We say people because we have folks on our list such as Willie Houston and Pfc. Barry Winchell who died because of ignorant perceptions as well. Barry died because he was dating Calpernia Addams and one of his fellow Fort Campbell soldiers had a problem with that. Willie died because the shooter's homophobia was triggered by him holding his fiancee's purse while she used the restroom.

But the bulk of the people on this sadly growing list are transpeople of color. Black and Latina people make up 70% of the Remembering our Dead list, and once again, the people we memorialize this year are disproportionately people of color.

12 of them resided in the United States, and are part of the 117 names worldwide we are sadly adding to this list.

As long as I'm living on Planet Earth and compile posts for TransGriot, it will be part of this blog's mission to ensure that I cover the TDOR and make sure our fallen transpeople are never forgotten.

What Does Transgender Day Of Remembrance Mean To You?

TransGriot Note: It figures that less than 12 hours after I wrote the TransGriot post talking about the glaadBLOG series of guest posts for the TDOR, mine pops up today.

So as I promised, here it is with a link back to the glaadBLOG as well. Thanks to GLAAD Fellow Amanda Morgan for honoring me with the opportunity to write it.

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.

Louisville Area TDOR Events

TransGriot Note: Thanks to Tina Storm for compiling the schedule for the 2009 Louisville TDOR events. I will be leading the November 19 workshop luncheon and discussion.

Thanks once again to More Light and the Women’s Center at the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary for being our lead sponsor and gracious host since 2002.


November 10
Movie Night hosted at LPTS Women’s Center 7:00 PM
Normal
Starring Jessica Lang and Oscar nominated Tom Wilkinson

November 12
Transgender 101 Seminar hosted at the Women’s Center 5:00 PM
Speaker to be announced.

November 17
Movie Night hosted at LPTS Women’s Center 7:00 PM
Transamerica
Two Academy Award nominations Starring Felicity Huffman

November 18
Survivors Prayer Vigil hosted at the Metropolitan Community Church 6:00 PM Prayer Service for transgender murder survivors and the TG Community

November 19
Workshop Luncheon: Panel Discussion hosted at LPTS 12:30 PM
In the Winn Center McAtee A & B

November 19
Transgender Day Of Remembrance Exhibit, Performance and Reception hosted by the Office of LGBT Services in the University of Louisville's Cultural Center.
Events start at 5:30 PM. Performance starts at 6:30 PM with reception at 7:30 PM

November 20
Early Morning Meditation Service hosted at LPTS
8:00 AM in the Caldwell Chapel

November 20
TDOR Memorial Service with reception to follow at LPTS
8:00 PM in the Caldwell Chapel


November 21 - 29
Gallery Exhibit: Transgender Images/Transgender Lives, Rogilio 6:00 - 9:00 PM Pedro Photographic Artist, Mari Mujio Transgender Oral Historian;
At: Clare Hirn Studio, 552 East Market St., Louisville, KY


For directions and updated information please visit: www.siennatg.org or http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=167074236257&index=1


This year's TDOR events are sponsored by More Light and the Women’s Center at LPTS, Transformations, Sienna, Diversity Consultants, Metropolitan Community Church, office of LGBT Services at University of Louisville, and SoTheatrical.

glaadBLOG Guest Blogger Series On TDOR

This week the glaadBLOG is posting a series of articles from various people about the Transgender Day of remembrance and what it mans to them.

And as you probably guessed, the TransGriot was asked to write a piece for that series which I'll post when it publishes on the day it publishes on their site.

It was a pleasure to do so and I thank GLAAD for the opportunity.

While you're waiting for my piece to show up on the glaadBLOG, here are the thoughts on what the TDOR means to Pauline Park and Stefanie Rivera.

I'll add the other links later as they come up.

UPDATE
Sassafras Lowrey
Ethan St. Pierre's Q and A interview

Why Do We Need Transgender Day Of Remembrance? Well…

TransGriot Note: My latest post for Global Comment

If you’ve been perusing my home blog and other transgender-themed blogs across the Internet recently, you may have noticed the TDOR acronym pop up, and wondered what it means.

TDOR stands for the Transgender Day of Remembrance. For the last eleven years, every November 20 we memorialize and call attention to the people we’ve lost due to anti-transgender hatred and prejudice.

The Transgender Day of Remembrance began in the wake of the November 28, 1998 murder of African-American transwoman Rita Hester of Boston, MA. Rita’s murder was the impetus for San Francisco based activist Gwen Smith to begin the Remembering Our Dead web project and organize a vigil in San Francisco on the one year anniversary of Rita’s murder.

The 1999 San Francisco vigil quickly morphed into an event that was observed on November 20 in various locations around the world. This year in addition to TDOR events taking place in numerous locales across the United States and Canada, TDOR events will take place in Australia, England, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Malaysia, The Philippines, The Netherlands, Norway, Scotland and Sweden.

The Remembering Our Dead Web Project not only compiles the names of people from around the world who have lost their lives to anti-transgender violence, it keeps statistics as well.

There are non-transgender people on the list such as Nashville’s Willie Houston. He was murdered in 2002, because the shooter considered him gay after seeing him hold his fiancé’s purse. This resulted in a verbal parking lot altercation near the General Jackson steamboat that tragically ended in death.

Pfc. Barry Winchell is another non transgender person on the list. In the early morning hours of July 5, 1999 the Fort Campbell, KY was killed because he was dating a trans woman, Calpernia Addams. That story is told in the movie “Soldier’s Girl.”

At this year’s TDOR ceremony we’ll be adding Michael Hunt’s name. He was murdered along with his transgender girlfriend, Taysia Elzy

The core part of any TDOR service is reading the list of names of people we lost from the time after we held the previous year’s event to the current one. As that list of names is read, a candle is lit in remembrance of that person.

Sadly, according to Ethan St. Pierre – who compiles the statistics and in 1995 lost his aunt Debra Forte to anti transgender violence – we will be lighting candles for 117 people. One of the other glaring statistics that Ethan points out is that 70% of the Remembering Our Dead list is made up of trans people of color, and that pattern sadly continues with the people we are memorializing for 2009.

Read the rest here.

TDOR Poem

We've reached another somber TDOR anniversary. It's the 11th annual observance of the day that we memorialize all of our peeps lost to anti-transgender violence. Last year's hit me a little harder than normal because one of the names read was someone I knew.

It's hard to believe that Nikki has been gone a year. She is dearly missed by all of us who knew and loved her.

But unfortunately, there are 117 other transwomen who have been brutally murdered this year, and once again, they are all disproportionately POC.

This YouTube video was actually shot at a previous memorial, but the poem is still apropos.



I have an upcoming trip to speak at a Long Island TDOR event on November 22. I'm looking forward to meeting and getting to see you New York/LI area peeps there.

LITDOR Event November 22

In addition to participating in my local TDOR event, I'll be flying to Long Island at the gracious invitation of the local group there to speak on November 22.

It will take place at the Congregational Church of Huntington in Centerpoint, NY.

The address is 30 Washington Drive, and here ate the directions to the church.

So for you folks in the area who want to attend the event or just say hi, come on down to Centerpoint, NY. It's your chance to pay your respects to our fallen transpeople, meet and greet allies and friends and see the TransGriot live and in living color.

TDOR 2009 Event List

If you're looking for information about a TDOR event near you, click this link.

Ethan St. Pierre is also compiling and updating it as he gets info from the various groups planning Transgender Day Of Remembrance events.

So make his life easier and E-mail Ethan at radicalguy@gmail.com with your event information as soon as you finalize the details.

You can also follow the TDOR event updates on Twitter.

I came from a planning meeting last Friday for the Louisville TDOR and I'm happy to see the event begin here to grow into a community one. This is the seventh year we've had them in Da Ville.

We're proud to have had the wonderful people at the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary's Women's Center be the lead organization and host of many of the events since we started observing TDOR's here in 2002.

The local gender group Sienna is also involved and for the first time this year we have input from U of L's LGBT Services, U of L campus GLBT groups and the Fairness Campaign.

The TDOR November 20 date is rapidly approaching. These are the people we are memorializing this year and I pray that list doesn't grow between now and November 20.

Lighting A Candle

Today is November 1, and the solemn countdown has begun towards our observance of the 11th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance.

In twenty days in locations all over the world, transpeople and our family members, friends and allies will stand in solidarity with us and help is mourn the people who tragically fell victim to trans hate violence.

We will read their names, light candles for them, shed some tears, pray for them, and resolve to make sure that what happened to them and their lives will never be forgotten.

This is not a happy-happy joy-joy event, nor should it be. It is a memorial.

But after we are done memorializing our fallen transpeeps, we need to be doing some hard, solid thinking about what we can do in our various locales to stem the tide of violence. We need to cooperatively work together with each other and our allies to stop the madness.

The candle is a symbol. When lit, it brings immediate light to a darkened room. When we began to draw attention to the horrific levels of violence visited upon our community, we shed light on that problem and sparked the national and eventual worldwide discussion and effort to combat the problem.

While it doesn't bring back the people we've already lost, what the TDOR does do is far more important. It gets the greater society to think about and focus needed attention on our community and realize we are human beings, too.

It hopefully will also move them to act in concert with us to end the scourge of anti-transgender violence that plagues it.

One Speech Down, Another To Go

Now that a week has passed since I visited the Bryn Mawr campus, my attention is now focused on the speech I'm presently compiling. I've been graciously invited to deliver remarks for a Transgender Day of Remembrance event on Long Island.

This will be the third speech I've given at a TDOR event and as of yet haven't been invited to give one back home or in the birth state (hint, hint).

But when I do get those opportunities, one of the things I take into account when I'm compiling these speeches is why we're gathered there in the first place.

The Byrd-Shepard Hate Crimes bill will have been on the books for a few weeks by the time I stand up at the podium to deliver this next speech, but our work toward achieving full equality for transgender Americans will not be complete.

That sadly will be an ongoing but necessary project.

Looking forward to seeing you folks in Long Island on November 22.

Countdown To Bryn Mawr and TDOR Speeches

I'm writing and rewriting my speech, updating a Power Point presentation, packing, getting divafied and eagerly anticipating my upcoming trip to the Philadelphia metro area and the Bryn Mawr College campus.

I'm heading there to do a 4 PM speech in the M. Carey Thomas Library's Room 224 on Tuesday October 20.

These trips never get old for me because I've always liked public speaking, traveling to different areas of the country and I enjoy doing these events.

It also gives me another opportunity to pick up another college coffee mug and a sweatshirt.

I was blessed last year to speak at CU-Boulder for a gender conference they held on their beautiful campus in the shadow of the Flatiron Mountains. I've already been on the U of L campus this academic year, and I'm looking forward to another trip that I'll be taking in March to SUNY-Oneonta.

I have an upcoming trip next month I'm taking to Long Island in which I'll be the keynote speaker for a November 22 TDOR event being hosted at the UCC Church in Centerport, NY.

Just like the Bryn Mawr and any speaking event I participate in, I want to be on my 'A' speaking game. It's just something about being on a college campus around our future leaders that energizes me.

Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of long time African descended trans activists getting these speaking opportunities at college campuses. Some of that you can attribute to many of us not being as public.

Some of us are doing work locally that doesn't give them a high enough national profile so that academia will seek us out and include our perspectives in these gender conferences and speeches that occur on these campuses.

I'm cognizant of that fact and consider it an honor when they choose me. It's a major reason why I want to give 150% effort in putting together an event that's not only informative but enjoyable as well. I'm keenly aware that I'm not just representing myself, I represent an entire community. I want to make it easier for the next African descended transperson to get that same opportunity I was blessed to get.

I'm also hoping that one day, I and my African descended trans brothers and sisters will begin to get opportunities and invitations to do these speeches and participate in gender conferences on HBCU campuses.

As for the upcoming LI TDOR event, this particular one has had some previous speakers that are a Who's Who of the trans community such as Diego Sanchez, Pauline Park, and Melissa Sklarz.

They are people that I respect and admire, so yeah, I'm honored that this group wanted me to speak at their event.

So if you want me peeps for 2010, start early with your requests.

I had the honor in 2002 and 2003 of speaking at my local TDOR sponsored by the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. I was even more thrilled by the fact the 2002 one was their first annual one.

Time to wrap this post up and get back to work polishing the speech.

For those of you in Philly or on the Bryn Mawr campus, looking forward to seeing you on Tuesday.

Ethan Needs 2009 TDOR Info

The 11th Annual Transgender Day Of Remembrance will take place on November 20.

Ethan St. Pierre, who now compiles the stats and coordinates the information for the TDOR is asking for your help.

If you are hosting or having a TDOR event on your campus or in your city, please send him the information about your event so that he can update the TDOR website.

You can send your TDOR event information to Ethan at Radicalguy@gmail.com

These are the people we will memorialize for this year's TDOR. Bear in mind that the list could unfortunately grow before the cutoff date.

2003 Louisville Transgendered Day of Remembrance Speech

photo-the late Amanda Milan, died in June 2000 after having her throat slashed at the NY Port Authority terminal.

In 2002 and 2003 I was asked to be the keynote speaker for the local TDOR event in Louisville. This is the text of the speech I gave that night.

Giving honor to God,
I am pleased to have the privilege of speaking to you on the occasion of the 5th Annual Transgendered Day of Remembrance. This is the second annual observance
that has been held here in Louisville on the LPTS campus. I'd like to thank Mary Sue Barnett, More Light, and The Women's Center here at the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary for their hard work in putting this event together and honoring me with another invitation to speak so that I can make more people mad on the Internet after this speech gets posted.

I'd like to give you a brief history on how this event began. It honors Rita Hester, an African-American transgendered woman who was found brutally stabbed twenty times in her Boston apartment on November 28, 1998. When Rita's death was announced in the gay and straight newspapers she was disrespected to the point where transactivists in Boston picketed the news outlets. It led to the Associated Press revamping their guidelines in terms of how they refer to transpeople in news stories. It was also the impetus for Gwen Smith to start the Remembering our Dead Project.

The Transgender Day of Remembrance works on several levels. It raises public awareness of hate crimes against transgendered people. It allows us to publicly mourn and honor the lives of our brothers and sisters who might otherwise be forgotten. We express love and respect for our people in the face of national indifference and hatred. It's a reminder to non-transgendered people that we are your sons, your daughters, your relatives, your parents, your lovers, and your friends. It allows you an opportunity to stand in solidarity with us and gives the transgendered community a chance to thank our allies and friends.

Last year I spoke to you on the steps of this chapel as a dark night gave way to a beautiful late November fall morning. When you think about it, there was some interesting symbolism to last year's observance. The early morning chill gave way to the warmth of the sun rising to start a new day. Well, this year's speech has its own symbolic touch. The ceremony for this year's vigil has moved from outside Caldwell Chapel to indoors. To me, it's a powerful statement of the commitment of the progressive elements of the Presbyterian Church, More Light, LPTS, and elements of other faiths to include its transgendered children in its mission. They are oases of inclusiveness in a sweltering desert of intolerance and it couldn't have come at a better time.

President John F. Kennedy stated during a televised June 11, 1963 speech on civil rights that ‘Every American ought to have the right to be treated as they would wish to be treated, and as one would wish his children to be treated. Sadly, that is not the case.'

Forty years later, it's not the case with transgendered Americans and our brothers and sisters around the world. We are being demonized by fundamentalists so that they can pursue political power. The Roman Catholic Church recently banned transgendered people from serving as lay ministers, priests or nuns. There are some African-American and other Baptist churches that have cast out their transgendered members at a time when we as Christians need to be INCLUDING transpeople into the fold and not EXCLUDING them.

We are here tonight because of hate violence directed toward my people that has snuffed out thirty-nine more lives. Once again we are adding people to a somber list that is approaching 300 names. That's a little over one killing a month since this project started tracking those stats in 1999. The thirty-nine individuals that we are remembering tonight represents the highest number of people that we have ever honored at a Day of Remembrance vigil. Once again we are gathered to hear about the causes of deaths of people who are simply struggling with trying to live their lives and being killed because of it. The sad part about it is that in many cases people either don't care or are unwilling to see the perpetrators brought to justice.

I mentioned earlier that I received some e-mailed criticism from some transpeople after my 2002 speech was posted on several transgendered Internet lists. Most of the e-mails I received agreed with what I said in last year's speech, but objected to me calling out conservatives and fundamentalists as the root cause of some of the violence being expressed toward transpeople. They cited the October 5, 1999 televised 700 Club comments of Pat Robertson stating that ‘transsexuality is not a sin’ as evidence that conservatives weren't the bad guys in terms of what's happening to our people. I pointed out to those folks that some of the people involved in the transgender bashing proudly call themselves conservative.

I reminded them of Pat's silence as Jerry Falwell sat by his side and blamed GLBT people for the 9-11 terrorist attacks on his TV show. I also reminded them of Pat Robertson's sorry history of opposing civil rights, so if the white sheet fits, too bad.

I've noticed over my lifetime that when conservatives get elected to office, society seems to descend to a mean spirited Darwinian tone and attacks on people that they don't like start happening with increasing frequency. It's as though the bigots feel that it's safe to slither out from under their rocks and openly act on their prejudices, since they see their politicians and ministers openly attacking GLBT people. They feel it's okay to do whatever they want to ‘those' people and get away with it.

It happened in my birth state of Texas once the conservatives got control of the governor's mansion and state government in 1994. The intolerant attitude cultivated over the last ten years has contributed to a rise in hate violence that led to the James Byrd dragging death in 1999. Two of tonight's people that we memorialized here come from my hometown, and although Kentucky as of yet has not lost a transperson to hate violence, I fear that it will happen soon. The bigots have already started to verbalize their feelings since the recent November 4 election.

The recent incident I was told about upset me. A married non transgendered woman with a short haircut was confronted downtown near Kinko's by several young males cruising Market Street. They hurled anti-gay slurs at her, and when the woman showed her tormentors her wedding ring, one of them responded, "Aww, you're probably married to one of them blankety-blank F to M transsexuals."

The interesting thing about this incident is that the woman in question is a student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. They have been taught down the street and at their churches over the last twenty years that GLBT people are the enemy. Now that one of their own has been confronted with the hatred that we face, some of the students on that campus are starting to see the light.

Society needs to see the light, too. All that I and any other transgendered person wants is to be able to use our God-given talents to make a decent living for ourselves and uplift our society. I was not put on this Earth to become a target for people who are upset at their how their own lives have turned out, are insecure about their own gender identity or sexual orientation, or want to use transpeople as bogeymen to scare people into donating to their pet political causes. Treat me and other transpeople as you would wish to be treated.

What needs to happen is that society needs to send a message that it will no longer tolerate its transgendered citizens being brutally killed. We need to be included in hate crimes legislation at the state and federal level, and prosecutors need to start giving murderers of transpeople the maximum penalties under the law, and not plea bargaining them down to minimal probation terms.

I'm going to close this speech by quoting the Rev. Pat Robertson from that October 5, 1999 700 Club show:

‘God does not care what your external organs are. The question is whether you are living for God or not. Yes, He loves you. Yes, He forgives you and He understands what is going on in your body.’

Enough said.


TransGriot note;
On May 22, 2005 the fear that I expressed at the TDOR came true when Timothy Blair, a 19 year old transgender youth who was in drag at the time, was shot to death at 28th and Magazine Streets as he walked home from a bus stop.

Transgender Day of Remembrance 2006

Today is what is called the Transgender Day of Remembrance, or TDOR for short. It's the day that transpeople and our allies remember the peeps worldwide who've lost their lives to anti-transgender violence. Events will take place all over the planet marking the occasion. In addition many GLBT websites (including my Transsistas-Transbrothas group) will symbolically black out their pages for the day.

The TDOR was started in honor of Rita Hester, an African-American transwoman who was brutally murdered in Boston back in November 1998. Rita had been living as a woman for over 20 years but after her death was disrespected by gay and straight media. That incensed the local Boston transgeder community who held a vigil for her.

That Boston vigil inspired San Francisco's Gwen Smith to not only plan one for the Bay Area the next year, but start the Remembering Our Dead web project that lists the people killed by anti transgender violence.

http://www.gender.org/remember/

Here in Louisville, the TDOR observance started in 2002 and has been capably hosted by the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. As I've mentioned in a previous post I was honored to be the featured speaker at the first two Louisville TDOR's in 2002 and 2003. Tonight there will be a memorial service for the 19 people we lost this year at the Caldwell Chapel on the LPTS campus. The featured speaker this year will be Brother Joshua Holiday. There will also be a Transgender 101 presentation at 12:30 PM conducted by Beth Harrison-Prado in the Winn Center.