Transgender Day of Remembrance Events Are About the Entire LGBTQ+ Community (and Friends)
With Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) coming up next Wednesday November 20th 2013, I have always been amazed at TDOR Vigils by the apparent absence of people from the mainstream gay/lesbian community, their progressive allies and even sometimes cisgender people from my own bisexual community. After all, those of us who identify as transgender/gender variant also identify as lesbian, or straight, or gay, or bisexual, or simply as queer-identified.
In such a diverse community, it’s easy for us to fracture into the “Gay Community”, the “Lesbian Community”, or even the “Bisexual Community" or the “Trans* Community”. When the reality is that as a bisexual transgender affirmed woman, I am a member of BOTH the transgender and bisexual communities. When transgender people are murdered, there is a high probability that they had a SEXUAL ORIENTATION! So it really makes very little sense for any LGBTQ+ people, or any person of good will to skip a Transgender Day of Remembrance Vigil simply because Gender Identity is the focus . . .
So, it’s difficult for me to separate our community and slice and dice the horrific murders into neat little categories . . .
If we have learned nothing from the Prop 8 decision, and now the Trans* Youth oppression and hatred of the California fundamentalist conservatives and their strange bedfellows the TERF's, then truly our community is lost . . .
So how does this really work? It is actually quite simple: The hate groups demonize the transgender/gender variant community and create the catalyst for the violence that affects us all. IF they can convince the mainstream Gay/Lesbian Community that the T is a fraud, and create rhetoric of hate, they can instigate conflict which results in escalations of violence ... When they yell that we should be put in institutions or camps or call for our separation or say we should be "Stomped into a Mud-hole" and the mainstream Lesbian/Gay Media remains silent, their voice carries as a singular voice of reason in an already confused discussion concerning gender identity . . .
It’s that simple. When you don’t attend a TDOR Event, when you don’t honor the dead of Transgender Day of Remembrance, when you don’t go to a Vigil you are sending a message loud and clear- The T is the "other" person and people like the TERFs and fundamentalists like NOM have won . . . So today, if no one has asked you to go to a TDOR Event, please let me invite you to come, listen and read our names, and honor the lives that we’ve lost in Our Collective Communities.
Find your local event here: TDoR Events and Locations 2013 list being updated up until November 20th
Source: Bi Magazine