Trans Day of Remembrance (2023 post)

My (brief) thoughts on Trans Day of Remembrance (TDOR, November 20th )

I know that most who know me don’t consider me to be a particularly ‘angry’ person. Peace and compassion have always been important principles to me, and I do my best to live my life lovingly, without harming others. But how “modern” society has treated my transgender siblings throughout my lifetime (and for generations prior) is a true test of endurance. I am not just heartbroken, but furious. No living being should be told so frequently that their life is worthless, that they should “41% themself”, that they are delusional, that their very existence is immoral and disgraceful. No living being should have to spend their entire life in a battleground over their own right to medical treatment, their right to have a family, or their right to simply exist and participate in society as themselves. The fact that a day of remembrance is necessary for any demographic of innocent civilians dying as victims of hate throughout the world makes me angry. The fact that the whole world seems so united in this hate against my friends and people I love so dearly makes me angry. The fact that so many good and amazing people are driven to believe that their only chance at peace is death makes me so angry. Trans Day of remembrance is a day the transgender community grieves over our collective loss, and anger is a necessary and normal part of that grieving process. I invite everyone to do their best to understand and to grieve with us. Have compassion, and allow that compassion to reverse the course of hate and violence all around us.

A few TDOR Facts:

1.) Most trans deaths go unreported (or wrongly reported under the wrong name and gender), but the trans community still makes their best effort to document and remember members of the community who were lost to violence and suicide through online memorials likeTrans Lives Matter's Remembering the Dead  page. 392 victims made the list this year, and the average age of death was 30. 

The majority of victims are black transgender women.

2.) As reported by the National Library of Medicine in 2020, suicide is a well known problem among trans people suffering from mistreatment. A staggering 56% of trans youth reporting having already attempted suicide and 86% reporting seriously considering it. Statistics across all trans age groups were similarly abysmal at a 40% attempt rate with 82% seriously considering. 

3.) According to the 2017 & 2018 National Crime Victimization Survey (the FIRST criminal victimization data to include information on gender identity), trans people were found to be far more at risk of becoming victims of violent crime than non-trans people. For non-trans people, only 23.7 cis women and 19.8 cis men per 1,000 people are victims of violent crime. For trans people this measured to be 86.1 trans women and 107.5 trans men per 1,000. 

4.) Trans Day of Remembrance (TDOR) was first observed in the US in 1999 as a vigil, following the 1yr anniversary of the murder of Rita Hester. Ms. Hester was a beloved and highly visible black trans woman and advocate for trans equality in Massachusetts who was brutally stabbed 20 times in her own home at the age of 34.

Some Further Reflection: 

[Not in original social Media Post due to potential for being mis-interpreted. I don't want to give the impression that the suffering inflicted on us is okay in any way]

In the words of the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa, Supreme Abbot of the Surmang Monasteries before the 1959 Chinese invasion of Tibet, “A great deal of chaos in the world occurs because people don’t appreciate themselves. Having never developed sympathy or gentleness towards themselves…what they project to others therefore is also inharmonious and confused”. This lack of self-compassion throughout all of human society is the root of the violence and hatred armed against people like the transgender community today. The result of these hardships is not just suffering and loss however. Those taken by this long, painful tragedy don’t have to have died for nothing. There’s so much for everyone to learn and grow from so the future can be better for all of us. Take the time to visit some of the trans memorial pages today and learn what you can about some of the lives that were taken this year. Perhaps you’ll even discover something about yourself in the process.

To me, being Transgender in my time is about walking a particular path of overcoming one’s greatest fears and transforming those fears into love. It’s about overcoming the fear of oneself ingrained at a young age by this incompassionate and fearful society, and learning to instead embrace one’s true self with care and appreciation. This is a lesson unavoidable and intrinsic to the transgender experience, but is as much a lesson for cis-gender people as it is for trans people.

 

One only needs to take a moment to see oneself in the lives of others to see that outward fear, apathy and hatred are just reflections of inward destructive feelings toward oneself. If encountering a transgender person in public makes you feel angry, disgusted, or afraid, try to fully understand where that feeling came from. Test yourself – can any of those feelings apply to yourself? Instead of looking for differences to separate yourself from transgender people, try to look for similarities, negative and positive alike. Recognizing yourself in others is the path to compassion, growth, and understanding. It could also change the world.