As it approaches the end of October, some very important national and international dates are coming up quickly; some will be recognizable, and others less known but still significant.
The first of these is November 20 for Transgender Day of Remembrance; this date may not be widely known because the topic of transgendered individuals still seems to be taboo in some circles. The purpose of Transgender Day of Remembrance is to recognize men and women who have been killed due to ignorance and hatred, targeted specifically because they were transgendered. The first such event took place in 1999 in San Francisco, to honor murder victim Rita Hester, who had been murdered brutally the previous year. The 1999 event was organized by Gwendolyn Anne Smith who began the website Remembering Our Dead, and launched the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Transgendered individuals are people who feel that their biological sex doesn’t match with their inner selves, and isn’t representative of who they are. In order to represent the gender that they feel they are, transgendered individuals often make changes through dress, mannerisms, and hair length, or by using or shunning cosmetics.
In today’s society being different then the norm of heterosexual and definitively male or female has been turned into a joke; often the word gay has come to mean something negative: “that’s so gay” is synonymous for “that’s so stupid.” The idea of a transsexual person has been so often ridiculed that it too has been turned into a joke, delegitimizing the situation of anyone who finds themselves with a physical gender that does not match their internal identity. The word transgender has been stripped of its true meaning, and had its legitimacy taken away, mutilated into the shortened version of “tranny” to enter the insult lexicon, and to slide in between slut and fag – other words that have turned real life issues into jokes and insults.
Transgendered individuals are people who are trying to explore themselves and to represent themselves as they would like society to see and treat them, as male or female. This is something that every other citizen seems to have the right to: to dress and to act in a way that is representative of who they are. So why is our society so threatened and so unsupportive when a transgendered individuals represent themselves as the gender that they feel they are?
The murders of transgendered men and women tends to be particularly brutal and vicious, and most of the cases are still unsolved. As a society we need to understand what it is to be transgendered, support men and women who perceive themselves in this way, and take a clear stance against mindless violence founded on ignorance and hatred. We need to forget the jokes and insults, and actually educate ourselves about people’s differences. Violence that stems from hatred, fear of difference, of people not fitting into what our society deems as “normal,” is tragic and unnecessary. We need to become aware of these issues and move forward in a way that protects everyone in our community, and has absolutely no tolerance violence towards other human beings.
For more information on Transgender Day of Remembrance, or to take part on November 20, get in touch with Catalyst, Mount Allison’s fantastic Queer-Straight Alliance group.