transgender day of remembrance
Nov. 20th, 2011 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kleenexwomanToday is the officially designated Transgender Day of Remembrance. The local trans group here had a service on Friday, I was debating going with another friend, but we decided not to at the last minute because she really didn't feel like going and being disappointed and depressed. She has to deal with that all the damn time. I felt that getting her out of the house and introducing her to more people she could hang out with was a better use of my time than going to a vigil as well, because I also really didn't feel like crying that much or listening to the names of people I didn't know.
Because I'm lucky, and none of my friends have been seriously hurt or killed or taken their own lives for being trans. I have friends who have been fired from jobs, thrown out of their homes, denied basic rights like being able to use a fucking public bathroom, been estranged from their families, had their lives and the lives of their loved ones threatened for being trans. I spent a good chunk of last night trying to comfort my girlfriend while she struggled with that, and this wasn't even about Day of Remembrance, this is just a thing she has to deal with all the time.
So I'm remembering this today. I hope more people will.
Because I'm lucky, and none of my friends have been seriously hurt or killed or taken their own lives for being trans. I have friends who have been fired from jobs, thrown out of their homes, denied basic rights like being able to use a fucking public bathroom, been estranged from their families, had their lives and the lives of their loved ones threatened for being trans. I spent a good chunk of last night trying to comfort my girlfriend while she struggled with that, and this wasn't even about Day of Remembrance, this is just a thing she has to deal with all the time.
So I'm remembering this today. I hope more people will.
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-23 06:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-01 05:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-01 07:47 am (UTC)I do tend to agree though, on the TDOR "festivities," I spend enough time being depressed, that I don't need a day dedicated to it. It's messed up enough that a large enough number of us die every year that we actually HAVE a Day of Remembrance in the first place. I'm not sure - and my apologies to the families and friends of the deceased - that I'd be able to handle attending one of these things and NOT cry myself to sleep for a week after.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-01 05:04 pm (UTC)I have a really hard time with memorial services without some kind of beacon of hope built in. The Jewish holidays are all "They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat..." The important part there is we survived. I try to be optimistic, but a lot of other people aren't--at the gender panel I went to, I was the only person who said "Why yes, I think it's possible that transgendered people will gain more political power within my lifetime." Everyone else went nuh-uh. I can deal with sadness, but I can't deal with sadness without some shred of optimism.