2014 Transgender Day of Remembrance Remarks by Jenn Burleton

PORTLAND, Ore. - Nov. 21, 2014 - PRLog -- [Excerpted remarks from TransActive Gender Center founder and executive director, Jenn Burleton at Transgender Day of Remembrance event on Nov. 20th, 2014 at Portland Community College.]

Full remarks available from TransActive Gender Center at: info@transactiveonoline.org

Many have asked, “What exactly is Transgender Day of Remembrance?”

Is it a memorial service for those we’ve lost? A protest against the violence directed at transgender people? Is it a day to recognize transgender heroes, leaders and organizers?

Is it a day for tears, fears, pride, celebration, anger, despair, education, frustration or perhaps just quiet reflection. Some also ask, “is Transgender Day of Remembrance your birthday?”

The easiest answer to each of those questions is, “Yes.”

Transgender Day of Remembrance is our time to remind the world that we are not invisible, nor will we be silenced or absorbed by other social or political agendas. We are more than just the middle letter in a never-ending acronym of intersecting and at times, colliding oppressions.

Transgender Day of Remembrance is when we remind our friends, families, communities, governments, organized and disorganized religions that transgender and gender diverse children and youth are suffering and dying on the front lines of humanity’s longest culture war… the fight against the pervasive evils of misogyny and patriarchy.

I remember being transgender when I shower and for a brief moment think about how certain parts of my body are a medical approximation of what my brain map expected them to be from birth.

I remember being transgender when I mistakenly change the channel to Fox News and hear some idiot like Bill O’Reilly, Gretchen Carlson, Mike Huckabee or other occupants of that clown car rant about how the “transgenders” are destroying "family values".

I remember being transgender when I want to respond with a well-thought out, educational statement of some kind but instead, simply mutter [an expletive] because I’ve heard it all before and I’m too damn busy to waste my energy on pulling them out of their own cesspool.

I remember being transgender every time I hear the word “sissy”.

I remember being transgender every Halloween when I go to Costco, or Target, or Fred Meyer and see the children’s costumes hanging neatly from racks labeled ‘Boys’ and ‘Girls’. I subversively move a few of the “Wonder Woman” and “Ariel” costumes over to the ‘Boys’ rack, and the “Captain America” and “Luke Skywalker” costumes to the ‘Girls’ rack.

I remember being transgender whenever Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Fallon makes a joke at the expense of someone transgender. They are not talking to me, but they are talking about me.

I remember being transgender whenever I’m in a room with cisgender people I don’t know, and who may not know I’m transgender. I wonder if they will pick-up on the fact I’m not like them, and how they will react if they do.

Being transgender means feeling exceptional, unique, isolated, fearful and a little bit uncomfortable almost all the time.

I remember being transgender when it becomes necessary to explain to allies that a big part of inclusion is recognizing that not all transgender people are well-intentioned, social justice advocates with pure hearts and saintly intentions. Some are self-loathing and misguided trans-exclusionary radical feminist appeasers, while others are far right wing racists, homophobes, xenophobes and indeed, transphobes.

I remember being transgender when I read about 8-year old Alex Medeiros being beaten to death by his father for refusing to cut his long hair, liking girl’s clothes and dancing too much.

I remember being transgender when I think about the determination, resilience and courage of those who came before me... and those who protested at Dewey’s Coffee Shop in Philadelphia in 1965 and Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco in 1966.

I remember a determined, resilient and courageous 12-year old transgender girl who did a remarkable thing in 1966.

After stealing and reading the seminal Harry Benjamin book “The Transsexual Phenomenon” and later seeing a newspaper article announcing that Johns Hopkins Hospital was performing what was then called “sex reassignment surgery”, this young girl dressed in her mother’s clothes and rode a city bus across town in a major American city to the County Hospital.

... she took an elevator up to the Psychiatric Department and in no uncertain terms told the receptionist that she was there, ready to begin treatment.

After all these years, I only vaguely remember what it felt like riding that bus on a cold November day with that book and newspaper article clutched in my small hands.

It is important to recognize that those who do not survive are taken only by the most intense, unrelenting and barbaric forces the Universe can throw in our way. We are warriors.

We are here to remember and honor those who have fallen while fighting for the most noble and basic of all causes… the right to exist. In so doing, we renew a message that grows louder, more insistent and more undeniable than ever before... that transgender people represent the very thing misogyny and patriarchy have spent millennia trying to erase; the magnificence of our gender diverse human experience.

There is no life that comes without some form of struggle. I believe deeply that being transgender has made me a better person than I might have been otherwise. I suppose this feeling is moot, since I simply have no idea of what it feels like to be “gender mundane”, rather than “gender diverse”.

I have seen my culture move from treating people like me as scientific and medical curiosities to accusing us of destroying the very fabric of society and being a threat to children in restrooms.

I have witnessed magic in the eyes of a child when they get to finally be a boy, just like Pinocchio.

I’ve seen the forces of someone’s idea of God and Country assemble to smite a girl named Nicole simple because she had the audacity to want to use the restroom for the same reason as any other child, and I’ve seen the parents of that beautiful young woman sacrifice almost everything to play David to the Goliath before them… and win.

I’ve experienced a past filled with hate, fear, violence, injustice [and] pervasive ignorance. I remember all of those things, and though I wish it were not so, I understand they still exist and challenge us today.

We are survivors. We are warriors. [We] are forces to be reckoned with. We will not let our grief for those we’ve lost deter us from the journey that lies ahead.

Too many lives have been damaged, destroyed or taken, but we have many generations of the living yet to be saved.

We will fight for all children.

We have nothing better to do with our time than to change the world.

Thank you.

(c) 2014 Jenn Burleton. All Rights Reserved.