“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”
— Terry Pratchett, Going Postal
On the Transgender Day of Remembrance, Sunday November 20th, NYMG Writers Lee Hibbard and Jynx Boyne met at an event on Purdue University Campus. The two of them wrote reflections on the topic in the interest of promoting solidarity and sharing their thoughts as members of the trans community.
Lee’s Reflection
On the evening of Sunday, November 20th, a group of students and community members gathered on Purdue University Campus to observe the Transgender Day of Remembrance, or TDoR. The event, organized by the campus chapter of the National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals at Purdue(or NOGLSTP@Purdue), was my first time attending a TDoR event. We stood in a circle holding electronic candles and slips of paper printed with the names of the dead, the transgender individuals who were murdered during the year of 2016. Each piece of paper was printed on the front and back with a name, age, cause and location of death, and the date of the person’s murder. Many of us held more than one piece of paper, and still more did not read every name they had been given. The mood was solemn, tears were shed, hugs given, friendships made and reaffirmed in the wake of tragedy, and I thought, as I had throughout the day, about what it means to be transgender in 2016.
Being trans in America has never been a safe or low-stress state of being, but the events of the Presidential Election have kicked my anxiety and concern up to eleven. On November 8th I sat watching the results of the polls roll in on the news, a sinking feeling in my stomach. I talked to my trans friends and family online. I thought about my closeted trans friends, many of them confessing to me that their fear and despair in the wake of this presidency was going to keep them from coming out. I thought about my partner, whose mother proudly voted for Trump, and their concerns about ever being accepted as an agender individual in this new America.
I thought about my own transition, which is one caught heavily in the middle of the process. My name is legal but still being changed in some places, and my gender is still incorrect. Every piece of identification I have labels me with an identity I am trying to change. I have resources available but lack time, money, mental health ability. I sat in my apartment two nights after the election and sobbed openly as I thought about the possibility of having to wait four years, maybe more, to start hormone replacement therapy for my own safety.
The future of trans rights is uncertain right now. Much of the legal and political progress made over the last eight years is under fire, and the lack of clarity on whether or not trans and gender nonconforming people will keep the rights we’ve fought to gain is painful, even terrifying, to consider. Pairing this consideration with the fact that transgender people, especially trans people of color, are being murdered and subjected to brutal violence all over the country, and it’s no wonder that those of us with identities under the trans umbrella look at the future and question our safety.
I look at the news media’s collection of slideshows and articles about the brutal murders of trans people in America, the vast majority of them black and latina trans women, and I think about how this list will likely grow as 2016 draws to a close. I think about how long the list is compared to 2015. I think about how long the list will be in 2017. I think about how likely it could be that the list include someone I know, or even include me. I think about all the people whose names will never make it to the list because their deaths went unreported, unresolved, or listed under names that did not belong to them.
On this day, I remember my trans siblings who have been murdered, their lives taken before their time, and I think about where we can go from here. The violence and death was never going to stop in this country, not by a longshot, but in light of the results of the Election, I fear and anticipate escalation. I fear the loss of what few rights we have. This isn’t alarmism, it’s precedented reality, and as we move closer to January 20th we will hear more reports of the laws and executive orders that will be contested, the new ones that will be put in place.
Despite both writing for NYMGamer, this event was the first time Jynx and I had the opportunity to meet in person. We stood together in the circle, read names, remembered the fallen, and I felt that sense of community. After we parted ways I sent Jynx a message that I think encapsulates the entire purpose and ethos of TDoR:
“Despite the solemn occasion, it was good to see you.”
That’s what this event was all about. We have lost, and we grieve, and we feel pain, but we come together to remember that we aren’t alone.
I’m in mourning today, and I know everything I’ve written so far has been more dour than hopeful, but I haven’t given up by any stretch of the word. I think about the best way to honor the dead, and all I can think of is to live, and to fight. On this day of memory, I think of the trans people who are still alive and fighting to stay that way, and I think of the ways to help them, to get help for myself, to support this and other communities under fire.
Transgender individuals and allies have been sharing resources all over the internet to support and fight for those of us who suddenly have a deadline for aspects of our transition. As outlined by New York lawyer Carl Charles, the process for changing the gender marker on a passport is very trans friendly at this point in time due to an Executive order, but with the possibility of that being rescinded after January 20th, knowing the procedure for getting and changing a passport is essential. This and other essential resources are being circulated via the hashtag #TransLawHelp on twitter, a movement started by Riley on Twitter to collect legal resources for trans and gender-nonconforming individuals. Among these resources is a YouCaring fund to help transgender people change their passports before January, which has already raised almost 10 thousand dollars that’s going directly to trans individuals in need.
We have a long fight ahead of us, and TDOR reminds me that I need to keep fighting, not because I think everything’s going to be okay but because I know it’s the only way things have any possibility of being okay. Some days my fight is political, taken to the virtual pages of the internet to share with other communities like this one. Other times it’s a fight within the community to come together, honor and mourn those who have died, and find ways to be strong together. It’s going to a vigil. It’s reassuring my partner. It’s encouraging my friends. Still other days my fight is personal, sitting in a doctor’s office to talk about the daunting but exciting process of starting a testosterone regime and taking that next step into my transition. It’s self-care and taking breaks to play Pokemon and reminding myself that shedding tears is not a sign of weakness. I fight in many spheres and communities, on many levels, I stay angry, and I don’t give up.
Being trans has never been a choice, but on this day, in the wake of dark times and darker events, I choose to fight, in any way I can. It’s the best way I can think of to honor the memories of everyone we’ve lost.
***
Jynx’s Reflection
I’ve done this five times, and it never gets any easier. If anything, it gets harder. Every name read reminds me of another person we failed. I ask myself how does this keep happening? But I know the answer.
This year was different, however. It wasn’t because I was one of the speakers at the TDoR event–I’d done that before, a few years ago. I cannot discern a root cause of why it felt different, but I can think of many attributing factors.
There was tangible fear, anxiety, and uncertainty. The events of the past two weeks has made the reality of being transgender in America (no, in the world) a nightmare that any aware person can realize. But interlaced in this as the need for community, the underlying determination that everyone in that room deserved to exist.
Sometimes, the loudest act of resistance is existing in a world that seeks to snuff you out.
I have a hard time justifying speaking at events like this. Despite being a part of the Trans community, I still feel imposter syndrome something fierce. I know the privilege I have will protect me, sometimes, at the end of the day. I have social anxiety; I hate speaking to groups of people. But I set that aside to speak my words, and to speak the names.
I felt bad, because I couldn’t be as uplifting as maybe I should have been, because my fear is bitter and angry, instead of hopeful. Love alone trumps nothing, not without action, resistance, and diligence. I force my existence out of spite.
Every year, as the names are read, I listen for those who died on my birthday. Because mixed with spite is guilt. Another year I made it and others like me did not. This year, there were at least three. All of them were younger than me. I’ll carry their names with me the rest of my life.
It was different, because after all the names had been read, I found myself the center of the briefest attention, as good friends looked at me to say something, anything, because the silence that fell was a grave shroud and didn’t seem right.
I asked for a moment of reflection, the action we’d done every year at the echos of the last name faded. But within that, I found myself paraphrasing Terry Pratchett. A human being’s existence doesn’t stop until the last of their influence, their essence, has faded. By saying their names, remembering their lives, we made the fallen immortal. The quote I was paraphrasing is the following, from Pratchett’s Reaper Man.
“In the Ramtop village where they dance the real Morris dance, for example, they believe that no one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away—until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence.”
I do firmly believe this. And as we reflected, there was a reluctance to break the circle. For the first time in five years, we stood in silence, and no one moved. We looked between each other, waiting. I do not know what the others thought, but in that moment I realized that we were safe. And that moving would break that safety, and we’d have to turn the to face the world again.
My only hope was that no one faced the night alone.
