Transgender Day of Remembrance

[ailbhe]

They are still dead.

That's the thing about murdered people, they stay dead. Their mothers never get to hold them again. They never get up and make coffee again. They never write another poem, never build another house, never swim again. They don't write any more software or toast anyone's health or buy any more tins of soup at the supermarket.

Stop killing them. Stop ignoring them. Stop reporting their deaths as though the inside of their pants is the only thing that matters, or talking about their deaths as though their apparent physical sex change isn't an important part of why they died. Stoppit.

Please.

Comments

[serene]

*love*

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

I'm with you, but I don't think it's possible to do both of the things you want people to do. All the people on the link you posted are women or were presenting as female. That either makes them murdered women (in which case does it matter that they used to have a penis? is that what really makes it important? a ghost schlong?), or murdered transsexuals (in which case we have to talk about the contents of their pants, to put it centre stage and pick it apart and say: it is not OK to hate people because of this). It's the bugbear of most online discussions of trans feminism that this circle can't seem to be squared, and I don't pretend to have the answer. I'm just sayin, I'm as confused as anybody here, and would like it best if we could just say: they were people. It's not OK to kill people. Stop killing people.

[ailbhe]

They are murdered people who did not present as their birth sex. So the newspapers need to say "Susie Smith, journalist and animal rights activist, murdered for being trans," not "Man With Fake Vagina Killed In Suburban Sleaze," and the people who DO think she was a real person need not to ignore the part trans-hate played in her death.

It would be nice if we could just say "they were people," but we can't yet.

It is very confusing and upsetting; I have to keep checking what I say. And changing it. It's easy to screw up.

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

-- "They are murdered people who did not present as their birth sex."

They are murdered people who presented as *women*. I just can't have that be erased; I just can't.

[ailbhe]

Most but not all - the list includes FtM as well.

I think they were all killed from a basic misogyny, though, whether MtF or FtM.