I made it to Harvey Milk Plaza slightly before 6:30 tonight, which was supposed to be the start time for the walk down Market Street. I was impressed that I was able to make it there considering the logistics of the entire thing...putting on makeup, driving into the city, parking....parking, catching the F Street car down to the Castro from the LGBT Center.
Anyway, I said hello to a few friends while we waited....Kate, Gwen, Gayle, Mikayla, Kelly, Dion, Travis, and Angel to name a few. I called Claire since I thought she would be down there as well, but the timing of the event with her zapping schedule just didn’t work out. For those that don’t know....never get between a transsexual and her electrolysis appointment. I also saw Matt Gonzalez, one of the mayoral candidates in next month’s mayor’s race runoff. I was impressed he was out there. Too bad I don’t vote in SF.
As we were all waiting, I had two separate people come up to me and asked what the whole thing was about. I told them it was the 5th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. One guy couldn’t believe we’d been having it for 5 years. I guess many people just don’t realize how long we’ve been around. Jeez, just looking back at all of it, I have spotted TS/TG conferences that occurred when I never even knew they were going on, way before I was out to myself. Where was I? Why hadn’t I ever heard the word transgender before 2000? Was I living in a cave or what?
The walk along Market was nicely organized. We had a police escort the entire way, although we walked a little slower than what I would have liked...but that was probably by choice...to take in the event in all of it’s glory. Usually, most of us get tired of people staring at us because we are different...but tonight we wanted them to stare at us...acknowledge who we are...and realize that we are people...just like them, and it’s not OK to kill us just because our gender identity and gender expression are different.
We made it to the LGBT Center then piled into the Ceremonial Room. We had a number of performers, including Transcendence, the first all-transgender Gospel Choir. They’ve been around for over a year and I’ve heard them perform a number of times. Unfortunately, I’m not the biggest fan of gospel, but they do sing very nicely. What was so amazing to me is that there was an entire stage filled with people who now expressed themselves in the gender they identified with, even though they were born into the opposite biological sex. It was so amazing to see all of them being who they are, and seeing them so happy.
A guy walked around passing out cards with numbers on them. Someone didn’t want theirs, so I offered to take it. It was number 19. After the list of performers and speakers had concluded, we moved forward with the crowning moment...reading the names of those that had been killed because they were different. One...two...three......the names continued with horrible stories of how people were killed and the injustice around their murder. Many of the people that killed these transgender people were never identified or even tried for their crimes. Sixteen....seventeen....eighteen.. ..the mic was passed to me. I read the card:
My name was Michael Charles Hurd of Houston, Texas, and on June 18th, I was found shot to death in my car; at the time of my death I was wearing a wig, makeup, and feminine attire.
Gwen rung the bell after I finished.
Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two....the names continued on, each one dying in horrible fashions. Thirty-five, thirty-six.....thirty-seven. Thirty-seven people were killed in the past year because they were either transgender or a supporter/friend of someone who was transgender. When can we stop hating people because they are different....and just move forward with life.
Sorry, but I have to continue on. This week, Bush has been in Europe. Today, a bunch of Europeans brought down a huge fake statue of Bush similar to the way the Saddam statue fell. George is fighting so hard for the freedoms of Iraqi’s and the security of Americans, but he won’t even provide the freedom of gay and transgender people in the US to marry one another. What type of two faced freedom is that?
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