serene | Transgender Day of Remebrance (Reply)

I love S. She was my first or second girlfriend, depending on how you count (it's complicated), and she has taught me a lot over the years about the dehumanizing way that the world treats transpeople. When she had her SRS, she trusted me enough to help with a little of the aftercare. We've known each other for 11 years, and have been loving friends when we weren't busy trying to be girlfriends. She builds sailboats. She loves her partners. She is a martial artist. She's an out transwoman in a world that will kick your head in for that. One day, she may be murdered for it. She doesn't deserve that.

I love A. She and I haven't met in person, but I think she's one of the sweetest people ever, in all the world. She suffers from depression -- who can blame her, with all she's been through? -- but she always has a kind word for her friends, even when she's lobbing killer crocodiles in their direction. She's a coffee addict, a word lover, and a girlfriend devoted enough to move 10,000 miles to be with the one she loves. One day, she may be murdered for living her life as a woman, the only way that makes sense. She doesn't deserve it.

I love J. We're not even close friends, but she brought together the group of women I consider my sorority. Give her a guitar or a banjo or hell, some random plucked-string instrument, and she'll play you a symphony or a hoedown. She has an incredibly sharp wit, and she fools a handful of people every year about the direction of Daylight Savings Time machinations. This year, she fooled herself. She's a community activist, a crack photographer, and a loyal and wise friend. One day, someone may kill her in a violent way because her gender presentation confuses or angers them.

There are more. There are probably even transpeople in my life whom I have not identified as such. And I love them all. And it makes me just close up inside when I think that their love and light and lives could be snuffed out as an act of gender policing.

And these are not neat, tidy crimes. No one poisons a transwoman, or feeds a transman too much valium until he dies in his sleep. The animals who do this rape and beat and brutalize their victims, and they often (this may be the most nauseating part) feel they've done good work in doing this, or that the people who were going about their lives living in their proper gender presentation caused this.

It's nauseating. It's upsetting. It's angering. It should never happen to my friends, the people I love, and it should never happen to ANYONE. Every last person who has lost their life to anti-trans violence was someone's child. Transpeople are parents, lovers, friends, community members, merchants, health care providers, workers, writers, clergy, and on and on.

It needs to stop. I wish I could stop it.