At 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 18, I found myself at a protest in Los Angeles over the number of trans people, mostly trans women of color, who’ve been murdered this year so far. The latest was Tamera Dominguez in Phoenix, Ariz. who was run over multiple times in a church parking lot by an SUV. It was caught on surveillance tape.
By the most conservative count, it’s the 17th murder of a trans person this year; all but two have been trans people of color. These have given us trans specific Twitter and Facebook hashtags of #blacktranslivesmatter, #stoptransmurders, #translivesmatter, and #ICouldBeNext. A Fox media affiliate identified the murder victim as male – an all too common occurrence with trans homicide victims.
The same thing happened in Fresno with the killing of KC Huggins. In that case, the Fresno Police Department used physiology to identify the homicide victim – she was assumed to be engaging in prostitution, because she was dressed in clothing not associated with the gender assigned to her at birth. This in spite of how she’d recently attended trans support meetings and surveillance videos from three different cameras from three different businesses suggest she was likely targeted.
The Fresno Police Department assumed from the beginning that it wasn’t a hate crime.
Here in California, we recently had the Death With Dignity Act take effect which made sure death certificates for transgender Californians accurately reflected their lived identities. Apparently we need a second Death With Dignity Act for police departments specifically to consider that crime victims – including homicide victims – won’t automatically be assigned gender by police based on physiology alone, but that individuals who wear clothing usually not associated with genders assigned at birth be at least considered transgender when reported to media outlets, and have their homicides at least be considered as possible hate crimes as a default.
I talked to Transgender Law Center Staff Attorney Sasha Buchert about such a law recently; maybe something will come of the idea.
Which in an around about way leads me to the upcoming Stonewall movie. Trans people of color and gender nonconforming people of color have often been left out of the narratives of trans and LGBT history. Since I came out in 2003, I’ve been to every Transgender Day of Remembrance memorial service in San Diego, and every year those on the list from the U.S., well, there have been more from the U.S. of black and brown skin than of white skin. Yet, until the past few years, the national narratives of trans people seem to set by Christine Jorgensen – white, middle age transitioners who frankly share much of my personal narrative.
The trailer for the new Stonewall movie features a fictional white character named Danny who’s shown throwing the first brick that started the Stonewall Riots. There are varied accounts of who threw the first brick, but almost all don’t attribute it to a white youth. If one looks at the film’s character list on IMDB, one sees there are no actors for central Stonewall veterans of color who were trans or gender nonconforming: Sylvia Rivera, Stormé DeLarverie and Miss Major.
The film, due to the trailer, has been accused of whitewashing and cis-washing the Stonewall Riots. The GSA-Network has a petition up, began by 18-year-old Pat Cordova-Goff, calling for a boycott of the film. She’s publicly offered to prescreen the film so that if the film isn’t a white- or cis-wash, as director Roland Emmerich has said it isn’t, she’ll call off the boycott, but so far he hasn’t taken her up on the offer.
Well, the speakers at the rally (that was hastily organized with four hours notice) I went to this past Tuesday night frequently rallied the crowd shouting “When we say ‘Trans!’ you say ‘Power!’ ‘Trans!’” to which the crowd of about 200 would reply “Power!” This was not a crowd that was to be easily sated.
I see trans people of color wanting their history told. I see trans people of color wanting their voices heard. I see trans people of color wanting the violence and murders of their peers to stop; I see them realizing they could be next.
As a white, middle age trans woman easily out-numbered by younger trans people of color, it was my time to shut up and listen.
