Transmisogyny, cis people, violence and the murder of Krissy Bates

first of all, thank you. thank you. thank you.  I'm really tired and doubt that what I have to say will come out well formulated, but I have found that if I don't respond to something right away I rarely end up responding at all.  I wish I had read this sooner but thank you for taking the time and initiative to write this.  It's really nice when trans folks (and come on now, were a rather small population) don't have to always be the ones to call people out and do some basic edumacating all the time and it's awesome when people don't try to speak for us or on our behalf, but speak from their own social location and make that known in what they write.  And thank you expressing emotion - rage in particular - as well as presenting information in an accessible essay/article.  Rage and outrage are justified, necessary, and productive emotions.  

It was a good general rundown of some of the many ways that transfolks face discrimination and hardship, but if I were to write an article on this, I would emphasize above all else that this happens all the time.  There was nothing unusual about the life and death of Krissy Bates or the way it was portrayed in the media.  Violence, sexual assaults, harassment, or threats of violence - come with the territory.  So many end up dead way too young as a result and so many more survive horrendous experiences.  Thanks for doing the research and getting the stats on poverty rates, although how many lost their job due to transphobia does not approach the number of times that trans folks don't get hired for jobs they are qualified if not overqualified for or get passed up for promotions and raises due to transphobia.  I've had a lot of experience with that.  I do wish trans murder rates and suicide rates had been included as well.  I can never remember them, but when I hear those numbers and think about that in terms of unquantifiable human lives I'm always blown away.  Same with thinking about the number of black men in prison and the damage that does not only to individuals and families but communities.  There's definitely a wow factor that goes along with those numbers and ratios and their pretty mind-blowing.  I've never heard a statistic on this but you know how [cisgendered] women still make like 70% of what [cisgendered] men make for doing the same work?  I wonder how much transwomen usually make compared to cis men?

I also want to say that I really appreciated this part: "I am angry that sex work is treated as a titillating detail in these terrible stories, with a strong suggestion that sex workers should expect violence…I am angry that women like Krissy Bates have nowhere to go for help when they do face violence because sex workers are treated as disposable people…We need to recognize that there are sex workers in our communities, cis- and trans, and we need to stand with them."

And this "I am angry that we cis people let ourselves get bought off--how we accept a gender hierarchy that hurts us and that hurts trans people worse.  I am angry that we accept a society which punishes people who don’t gender-conform.  I am angry that we suppress the parts of ourselves that aren’t perfectly straight and perfectly cis in exchange for cis privilege.  I’m angry that we are willing to accept laws, documents, clinics and spaces that benefit us, that protect us, and that exclude or ignore trans people."

*Tangent* Outcry over suicides of "gay" youth, but not the murders and suicides of trans folks.
The media attention and awareness campaigns regarding the suicide rate (or in other words, murder by a queer- and trans-phobic society)/waive of suicides by queer youth have been a positive development overall but I really have mixed feelings and criticisms of most of that, especially the "it gets better" campaign.  I've been suicidal off and on for a lot of my life.  But I also believe that individuals should have autonomy over their lives and deaths and decide when to end things as long as they think it through and feel that way over an extended period of time, not just a temporary moment of crisis, and are sure that that's what they want to do.  And even if someone does commit suicide without considering it for a long time, I can understand and respect that action and their right to do so.  If you're miserable and don't want to keep going, that's your choice and people should respect that and not always feel guilty for "missing the signs" or not doing enough to support someone, etc. although that guilt is, in other cases, appropriate.  But with young folks, really thinking something through and not acting impulsively is sometimes, though not always, really hard to do.  Suicide is a sad thing.  It's sad when people choose to commit suicide due to emotional pain and trauma, stress and anxiety, especially if they are young.  Deciding to commit suicide due to physical health or poverty is quite different.  It's sad that the persyn had a severe enough medical condition or cannot meet their basic needs to the extent that they were too miserable to keep going.  The conditions that lead someone to make that choice are sad, but not the choice itself and the act of exercising their power to end their own pain, suffering, and hardship.  

but the reasons I have mixed feelings about the media buzz and "it gets better" stuff, in no particular order are:
a) where is the outcry at the rate of murder and suicide of trans folks?  Why are gender non-conforming people - especially transwomen and/or trans folks of color and/or trans sex workers expendable?  Why aren't our/their deaths sad to people?  
b) why is the assumption that these kids who commit suicide because they are read by others as gay or feel non-normative desires or don't feel the desires that they're expected to are indeed gay?  How do people know which kids have those kinds of feelings?  If you're gay, lesbian, or bi and you are cisgendered, no one will know unless you tell them.  And if you are open about it, you are still much less likely to get teased, harassed, assaulted…It's the gender non-comforming kids (especially kids that are socially assigned "male" genders) who get called gay (whether or not they actually identify that way) and who get picked on, beat up, etc. the most.  So why is everyone calling them gay?  they may or may not identify as gay, but in most cases they endure misery that leads them to decide to end their life because they are gender non-conforming.
c) it doesn't get better unless we make it get better and generally it only gets better for some.  For the white, middle-class, homonormative assimilationist GLB folks, yes, it get's better.  But just how good it gets for you depends greatly on what privileges you have and your social position within interwoven systems of oppression.  It doesn't get better for those who can't get a job, can't go to the bathroom without fear, who want to change their body but don't have money or insurance to allow them to do so, for the many queer and gender non-conforming people in the prison system, those who get beat up by the police, who don't feel safe to be themselves anywhere…it doesn't get better.  

there is more to say then what this persyn says in their video, but it's definitely worth watching and thinking about.

It Gets Better? Does it REALLY?

-end of tangent-

And now, the vigil.  I wasn't there and I cannot comment on how good or useful it was.  But I was at a meeting a few days before the vigil where one of the planners from Outfront MN - who organized the vigil - praised the police and how great they are about wanting to protect and get justice for trans people and that Outfront asked the police to escort the vigil as it (on the sidewalks) from MCTC to Krissy's apartment (where she was murdered).  Well for one thing, the police only protect some GLBT people while they target others.  Krissy was a trans sex worker.  Ain't no way in hell the police wanted to protect her.  Police may not target and/or beat up white middle class homonormative assimilationist GLBs and even some Ts who meet those descriptions very often anymore, but they sure as hell target and commit acts of harassment and assault and humiliation against gender non-conforming people who don't meet that description and sometimes they do still target the white middle class assimilationist GLBT folks.  The police most definitely are not the allies and protectors of queer people of color
(or pretty much any persyn of color), or gender non-conforming sex workers (or any any sex workers).  The police and the criminal injustice system cannot and will not protect most of us and will most definitely not result in "justice."  The ginormous prison system causes more harm than good and destroys many individuals, families and communities, particularly poor folks and people of color.  No, I do not support hollow "safety" and "justice" for myself or anyone else that causes so much harm and oppression.  My life and safety are not more important than anyone else's and the police and the prison system will never stop transphobia or homophobia or any form of oppression, they are and will always be oppressors.  

I generally don't see vigils as something that is very useful broadly speaking, but I definitely cannot support a vigil organized by Outfront and I hope Frowner and others reconsider their support of the vigil.  Going to that vigil does very little that is useful as an "ally" and in fact it bolsters systems that oppress most queer and trans folks and so many other communities.  That is not an act of support but an act of naive well-meaning collusion with forces of oppression.  A vigil that praises the police and condemns anger and any reaction that is not law-abiding will never be an appropriate response to well, anything.  I was so angry and disgusted by the "march" in response to the violent gay-bashing of Kristen Boyne (spell?) a few years ago.  It was advertised as a march but mostly hand-picked speakers/self-appointed leaders preached to us about the need to be peaceful and never feel or express anger, only love, praised the police, democrats, and corporations (particularly Dunn Brothers), and then lead us on a heavily marshaled short "march" where they made everyone stay on the sidewalk and only cross the street on green lights (myself and others were prevented from marching in our own way by multiple wanna-be cops aka marshals.  This was a few years ago, and I definitely did not pay attention to all of the speeches because I was both upset and bored by them, but I don't believe any of them mentioned that despite the fact that the assailants made it clear during the attack that they were hurting her because they perceived Kristen - a total stranger- as queer (and why did they perceive her that way? because she was somewhat gender non-conforming and was perceived as a dyke, not because she felt desires toward women because they had no way of knowing that), that she was also a persyn of color and that, even subconsciously, may have been a factor in why she was targeted.  The march was billed as a "march for queer women" and not a march for queers of color.  Why is Kristen's identity as female and the social location that places her in more important then her social location and identity in a white supremacist society so much so that the march and speakers didn't address that at all?  How different might the speeches and march have been if that had not been silenced and ignored?  How is this not an exercise of white privilege by the march organizers and speakers to make it about themselves and not about Kristen and the very different reality that she faces?  If you actually thought about her reality in intertwined systems of oppression and talked to queers of color you might rethink your praise of police and the prison industrial complex, corporations, and politicians who don't give a damn.  Color blind racism is still racism folks.  [Don't have enough time to go into an another tangent about that, I'm having trouble keeping my eyelids open at this point.  There's plenty to be found on the web I'm sure if  you search for "color blind racism."]  And as a queer persyn of color,  again, the police do not give a damn nor will they ever about protecting her.  And as I said above, they can't even if they really did want to.  

these are also some of the reasons I do not support hate crimes legislation.  This short, concise article is a good place to start.  http://www.blackandpink.org/revolt/a-compilation-of-critiques-on-hate-crimes-legislation/

For the record, if I am severely attacked or murdered please do not let an organization like Outfront co-op my attack/death and use it to "lead" by marginalization and exclusion and subsume my life and values under it's own agenda.  Do not let anyone tell you that you should not be angry or that the police care about me or you.  I want a community meeting and a public march through the streets and I want people to do whatever they think is appropriate and justified, and what they need to do for themselves.   

My only other comment/feedback on the essay is that it ends rather abruptly and vaguely.  "Do something else" without any suggestions as to what, where to turn for ideas and resources, etc., isn't terribly helpful.  You (Frowner) and I have discussed this in the past and some of that discussion made it into the article on last year's trans march so linking to that might be an easy place to start.  I have so many more thoughts on this and if I ever get or make the time I plan to write a zine aimed at my family in particular, but also at cisgender people more broadly who just don't get it, don't know what to do, and my thoughts on what it means to me personally to be a cisgender ally -i.e. what does that involve doing - and why it's in everyone's interest to fight gender- and sexual-normativity (well all normativity really) so that we can all be more free to be ourselves and become something new in so many ways.  
here's a link to that article: http://twincities.indymedia.org/2010/jun/too-fabulous-be-boxed-trans-march-organizers-resist-assimilation

again, thank you.  thank you. thank you.