TDOR 2009 event in London, Saturday 21st November

For those interested in attending, here are the details of the London TDOR 2009 event which will be happening tomorrow, Saturday 21st November:

For trans people, their friends, families and allies
An opportunity to remember, mourn and celebrate trans lives lost to violence or suicide
2:00pm for a 2:15 start
Readings, poetry and music, followed by tea and cake
Ends at 5:30pm

Where: The 52 Club
Basement of Bonham Carter House
52 Gower Street
London
WC1E 6EB

Note: The venue is accessible from the street by lift.

Google Maps link   |   Streetmap.co.uk link

When: 2:00pm for a 2:15pm start; finish around 5:30pm

About:

The Trans Day of Remembrance is an opportunity for trans people, their friends, families and allies to come together in a safe sapce to reflect on those who have lost their lives through violence or suicide because they are trans. It is a time to remember, mourn and celebrate them and to tell their stories so they are not forgotten.

You don’t have to bring or do anything but, as in previous years, we would very much like people to contribute and participate if they wish. If you would like to take part, please bring short stories, readings or poetry and speak to the organiser beforehand – if you prefer not to read yourself, we can find someone else to read your text for you.

The event is organised by Camden LGBT Forum in partnership with the trans community, and funded by Camden Council.

(Click image for larger version)

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Other UK TDOR events are listed in my previous post, link here. See also the International Transgender Day of Remembrance website (link here)

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Previous related posts:

• Transgender Day of Remembrance 2009 (November 20, 2009)
• TGEU press release: More than 160 murders of trans people in the last 12 months (November 19, 2009)
• TDOR 2009 – some events and locations in the UK (November 17, 2009)
• Reminder: 11th International Transgender Day of Remembrance (October 1, 2009)
• Transgender Day of Remembrance 2008 (November 20, 2008)
• Transgender Day of Remembrance: London, 23 November (November 13, 2008)
• November 20 – Transgender Day of Remembrance (November 4, 2008)

How many more of us must die?

Even as my community remembers those of our siblings from every corner of the planet who have been murdered at the hands of transphobic bigots in the year since our last Day of Remembrance in 2008, news is breaking of the death last Friday of another of my sisters.

I don’t really feel able to process this properly at the moment, so here are a few selected verbatim quotes from various news feeds; Google News (link here) has more.

The body of a transsexual involved in a scandal that brought down an Italian regional governor was found among the remains of a house fire in Rome today.

Police said the corpse in a basement apartment was known as Brenda, one of two transsexuals linked to former Lazio governor Piero Marrazzo.

She appeared to have died from smoke inhalation.

(Via Ireland On-Line)

(Image via Telegraph.co.uk)

Transsexuals in the area rejected claims that Brenda committed suicide.

[...]

“They killed her. I do not know who. She was in a bad psychological state, she wanted to go back to Brazil. Now they must find who did this,” said Barbara, a transsexual friend of Brenda, told reporters.

[...]

“The police have done nothing, and all the transsexuals who live in this area are at risk of death. We are very afraid of the Rumanians,” Barbara told reporters, adding that the owner of the house where she lived wanted to evict Brenda.

“Brenda wanted to leave, she had already prepared her suitcases,” said Barbara

(Via adnkronos international)

Brenda was one of two transsexual prostitutes involved in the case of former Lazio Gov. Piero Marrazzo, ANSA reported. He resigned on Oct. 27 after it was reported he was being blackmailed by rogue cops.

The other prostitute, named Natalie, appeared in the video with Marrazzo, which was shot on Aug. 3 after two of a gang of four Carabinieri broke into her apartment.

The dead transsexual, who has denied having sex with the ex-governor, was questioned in the Marrazzo case on Nov. 2 about the possible existence of a second video.

A week later, on Nov. 9, she was found lying drunk and bruised on a Rome street claiming she had been robbed by a gang of eastern Europeans.

(Via United Press International)

When questioned in early November, Marrazzo, who is married with three children, admitted to several encounters with Brenda and another transsexual prostitute named Nathalie.

Later, reports surfaced about another, longer and allegedly more compromising video of him with cocaine.

“I had encounters of this kind with another person, a so-called Blenda (the name Blenda was used in the police minutes), which is a name that I read in the newspapers recently and which I remember,” said Marrazzo.

“During one of the encounters with Blenda, I remember seeing another transsexual, but whose name I do not recall. I think I only had two encounters with Blenda,” said Marrazzo.

(Via adnkronos international)

11th International Transgender Day Of Remembrance, 20th November 2009

For many trans people, life is not easy. Nobody said it would be. But being trans is not something we choose and as a consequence transitioning may not be optional either. For some of us it’s something which we must do if we are to stand any chance of managing our gender dissonance, of reducing it to a level where we can function in the same way as any other member of mainstream cis society.

To quote Andrea Dworkin in Woman Hating:

Every transsexual, white, black, man, woman, rich, poor, is in a state of primary emergency as a transsexual.

For many of us, our focus is finding ways to overcome that state of emergency: we transition to survive. We are not here to provide entertainment for cis people, nor to be the subject of cis centred academic theories. We cannot be socialised into being cis; neither can being trans be beaten out of us. We may not choose to be trans, but we are here, and we are trying to make our way in a world where we face prejudice and discrimination, bigotry, hatred and violence from cis people on a daily basis.

Yes, our journey is hard, but there are good things, too. We find others like ourselves and learn that we are not alone. We make new friends, trans and cis. We learn to face and overcome challenges and obstacles we never knew we’d face, and find strengths we never knew we had. We change, we develop and we become the people we always knew we were.

Or at least, some of us do.

Some – like the more than 160 trans people mentioned in the recent report of the TGEU’s Trans Murder Monitoring Project – don’t make it through. They are the ones we remember today: those members of my community who weren’t allowed to grow and blossom or find their true selves and who were murdered at the rate of three a week, every week.

Today, 20th November 2009, is the 11th International Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR). It is a day when we remember that every day, all over the world, thousands of trans people are excluded, persecuted, hated, mistreated, subject to aggression and routinely murdered or driven to suicide because of our so-called differences from other members of mainstream cis society. A system which tolerates and accommodates such hatred, prejudice and bigotry is unacceptable, and must be fought without concession, in the name of its past and present victims, and also in the name of its victims to come.

There are numerous events and vigils being held worldwide to mark this year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance – many are listed on the TDOR website (link here) and I would urge anyone – trans or cis – who is able to attend any of these events to do so. Perhaps I may see some of you at the London event tomorrow (Saturday 21st November).

But regardless of anything else, today of all days, please spare a thought for those of my community whose lives have been sacrificed to transphobic bigotry and violence – and maybe ask yourself how anyone who believes in the basic principles of feminism can help us work towards ending transphobic hate crimes like this and this.

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(Cross-posted at The F-Word and Harlot’s Parlour)

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Previous related posts:

• TGEU press release: More than 160 murders of trans people in the last 12 months (November 19, 2009)
• TDOR 2009 – some events and locations in the UK (November 17, 2009)
• Reminder: 11th International Transgender Day of Remembrance (October 1, 2009)
• Transgender Day of Remembrance 2008 (November 20, 2008)
• Transgender Day of Remembrance: London, 23 November (November 13, 2008)
• November 20 – Transgender Day of Remembrance (November 4, 2008)

TGEU press release: More than 160 murders of trans people in the last 12 months

(Click image for larger version)

From a Transgender Europe (TGEU) press release of 18th November:

The 11th International Transgender Day of Remembrance is being held, this November in more than 120 cities worldwide: Since 1999 the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), in which those trans people who have been victims of homicide will be remembered, takes place every November. The TDOR raises public awareness of hate crimes against trans people, provides a space for publicly mourning and honours the lives of those trans people who might otherwise be forgotten.

Started in the U.S.A., the TDOR is now held in many parts of the world. This year the TDOR takes place in more than 120 cities in 17 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania on November 20th.

Sadly, this year there are more than 160 trans persons to be added to the list, to be remembered, mourned and honoured as an update of the preliminary results of Transgender Europe’s new research project reveals.

The data collected by the Trans Murder Monitoring Project research team comes from a systematic monitoring, collecting and analysing news reports of the deaths of trans people worldwide. It has has revealed a total of 162 cases of reported murders of trans people from November 20th 2008 to November 12th 2009.

In the first 10 ½ months of 2009 already 150 murders of trans people have been reported. Yet, we know, even these high numbers are only a fraction of the real figures. The truth is much worse. These are only the reported cases which could be found through internet research. There is no formal data and it is impossible to estimate the numbers of unreported cases.

Cases have been reported from all six major World regions: North and Latin America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Most reported cases have been from Latin America and North America, with the majority from Brazil (41), Venezuela (22), Honduras (16) and the U.S.A. (13).

In total 124 murders of trans people were reported in 15 Latin American countries in the last year. The reported murders of trans people in Latin America account for 75 % of the world wide reported murders of trans people in the last year.

The recent update of the preliminary results also reveal that 16 murders of trans people have been reported in 6 European countries (Italy, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom) in the last year. In Asia murders of trans people were reported in India and Malaysia, in Africa in Algeria, and in Oceania for New Zealand.

In total the preliminary results show reports of murdered trans people in 26 countries in the last year.

The update of the preliminary results of TGEU’s Trans Murder Monitoring Project is presented in form of tables, name lists, and maps on the TGEU Website in English, Spanish, and German. The English version of the tables can be found at www.tgeu.org/tdor2009english. There you will also find information on the International Transgender Day of Remembrance as well as a list of all cities, in which the International Transgender Day of Remembrance will be held.

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Previous related posts:

• TDOR 2009 – some events and locations in the UK (November 17, 2009)
• Reminder: 11th International Transgender Day of Remembrance (October 1, 2009)
• Transgender Day of Remembrance 2008 (November 20, 2008)
• Transgender Day of Remembrance: London, 23 November (November 13, 2008)
• November 20 – Transgender Day of Remembrance (November 4, 2008)

Puerto Rico – first recorded hate crime murder?

There are many reports from various sources (Vivir Latino, Dallas Voice and others) about this horrific murder:

The suspect in the brutal slaying of a gay teenager in Puerto Rico was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder and four other counts, the prosecutor in the case told CNN.

Juan A. Martinez Matos was arrested late Monday in connection with the slaying of Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado, whose decapitated, dismembered and partially burned body was found Friday afternoon on a road in central Puerto Rico.

(Via CNN)

The usual media misgendering seems to be at play here, making it hard to unpick the reports, but several sources point out that:

Martinez Matos was “looking for women” in a red light district last Friday. He had already been turned down several times, but Lopez Mercado, wearing a blue dress and boots, agreed to get in his car.

District Attorney Jose J. Bermudez says that in his confession, Martinez Matos said that he thought Lopez Mercado was a woman.

(From 365gay.com via translation of a report in El Nuevo Dia)

Which makes me wonder if the victim may have been a transgender woman, despite the majority of the reports I’ve read referring to a “gay teen” and using male pronouns and a name which may well have been the name in hir legal documentation, but perhaps may not have been the name ze always went by. Regardless, it’s hard not to see it as a blatant and cynical attempt by the accused to lay the foundations for either a gay panic or trans panic defense at his trial.

But it seems the victim-blaming isn’t restricted to just the accused and the media. The local Police Department clearly also has its share of bigots:

The Puerto Rico Police Department has removed Investigator Angel Rodriguez from the case after Rodriguez made comments suggesting that Lopez was to blame for his own death, according to Edge.

“When these type of people get into this and go out into the streets like this, they know this can happen to them,” Rodriguez reportedly said in a statement to local media outlets.

(From EDGE United States via Dallas Voice)

As regards the hate crime aspect:

Puerto Rico Para Tod@s, the LGBT advocacy group [...] is calling on police to investigate the case as an anti-gay hate crime. Although Puerto Rico added sexual orientation to its hate crimes statute in 2002, Para Tod@s says the statute hasn’t been used to prosecute anti-gay violence. The FBI has announced it will take jurisdiction over the case if it’s determined that Lopez was killed because he was gay.

(From EDGE United States via Dallas Voice)

And if it’s determined that ze was killed because ze was trans? I wonder if the hate crime legislation takes account of that possibility.

Anyway. I’d like to close with the words of Bob McCranie, one of the organisers of a candlelight vigil planned for this Sunday:

“A teenager has been burnt and butchered in the streets, and all we can talk about is how many lies are in Sarah Palin’s book, and why Obama bowed to the Japanese prime minister. It is outrageous and unacceptable.”

(Via Dallas Voice)

Amen to that.

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Curtsey to Stefani for the heads up

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Cross-posted at Questioning Transphobia

Ellie Goulding – Under The Sheets (Pariah Remix)

Request for participants in a study about sexism as experienced and viewed by transgender individuals

ETA, 21 November: Caitlyn has issued the following update:

First of all, I would like to thank you very much for allowing us to get the ball rolling on the Sexism survey. Unfortunately, due to some unforeseen errors within our questionnaire, we are canceling the study for now. At some point, we may look at the issue of sexism as seen by transgender people again, but for now we’re tabling it

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I’ve received the following request via email and hope that some of you will be able to assist Caitlyn by taking part in this survey:

Hello, my name is Caitlyn Benoit, and I’m a member of a research team out of the Psychology Department at Southwestern Illinois College, an accredited school in the St. Louis Metro East area. Our research group is conducting a study about sexism as experienced and viewed by transgender individuals.

The best way to address what we hope to learn from this study is by starting with what we’re not trying to accomplish. We are not trying to document the transgender experience; we are specifically studying sexism. We believe that transsexual individuals – having experienced life as both genders – can offer valuable insight as to how members of each sex are perceived and treated in the workplace, relationships, schools, and other areas.

This study is being headed by Dr. Barbara Hunter, a psychology professor and active ally to the LGBT community. All student members of the research team are psychology students and either allies to or members of the LGBT community.

As responsible researchers, the privacy of our subjects is absolutely paramount. We understand the extremely personal nature of some of the information that may be disclosed in the course of this study. When considering how to maintain anonymity, we ask ourselves, “How would I want my privacy handled?” The only source of identifying information we have included is an optional contact information page at the end of the survey. Should you choose to provide us with this information, it will be reviewed only by members of the research team and kept separate from the actual survey packet; responses will in no way be attributable to the individuals from which they were received.

We acknowledge that this study does not lend itself to the inclusion of those outside the gender binary. This is not a willful exclusion of those individuals, but in an attempt to understand sexism as it applies to and affects us all, we must first understand gender roles in the context of society at large, which unfortunately necessitates that we limit the scope of this study at this time. We hope to investigate the issues facing genderqueer and genderneutral individuals in the future.

Thank you very much for your time and participation, and if you have any questions, feel free to contact me personally at kbenoit242@att.net and thank you in advance for any data you are able to give us.

Thank you,
Caitlyn Benoit

The study may be found here.

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Cross-posted at Questioning Transphobia

TDOR 2009 – some events and locations in the UK

Via the Transgender Day of Remembrance website:

• 19-21 November – TDOR photo exhibition, Entrance Foyer, Jubilee Library, Jubilee Square, Brighton:

  A public exhibition of photos of some of the people who have been killed in the last year. Some tributes will be on display with an explanation of what the Transgender Day of Remembrance is for, and its history.

  There will also be a book of condolence for Andrea Waddell, who was recently murdered in Brighton.

• 20 November – The Piazza, Warwick University, Coventry – 6.00pm

  Candlelit vigil.

  Full details on Facebook

• 20 November – Old Refectory, Wadham College, Oxford – 7.30pm

  Trans Q&A for those wanting to expand their knowledge and awareness of trans issues. A safe space, open to all and no prior knowledge required.

  Followed by…

• 20 November – Old Refectory, Wadham College, Oxford – 9.00pm

  A screening of Boys Don’t Cry.

• 21 November – 52 Club, 52 Gower Street, London WC1E 6EB – Beginning at 2:15pm
• 21 November – 1st Floor, Dorset Gardens Methodist Church, Kemptown, Brighton – from 3.00pm
• 22 November – Beacon of Hope, Sackville Park, off Canal Street, Manchester – Beginning at 3.45pm

  Service for the Transgender Day of Remembrance

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Cross-posted at Harlot’s Parlour

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Previous related posts:

• Reminder: 11th International Transgender Day of Remembrance (October 1, 2009)
• Transgender Day of Remembrance 2008 (November 20, 2008)
• Transgender Day of Remembrance: London, 23 November (November 13, 2008)
• November 20 – Transgender Day of Remembrance (November 4, 2008)

London woman’s murder: cis man arrested

Further to my recent post (link here) about the violent death of Destiny Lauren in London on 5 November, I note the following update on the BBC News website (link here):

Police investigating the murder of a 29-year-old woman in north-west London have made an arrest.

A man in his 20s is being held in connection with Destiny Lauren’s murder on 5 November.

[...]

Police previously arrested a 35-year-old man connection with the investigation, who has been bailed to return in December pending further inquiries.

Time alone will tell if both cis men are responsible for Destiny’s death. All I know is that the name of yet another of my sisters has been added to the roll call for next week’s Transgender Day of Remembrance.

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Sunday, 15 November: Reports from the Press Association (link here) and BBC News (link here) confirm that Leon Fyle, a 21-year old unemployed man, has been charged with the murder of Destiny Lauren, and will appear at the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court tomorrow (Monday, 16 November)

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Monday, 16 November: From the Press Association (link here):

Unemployed Leon Fyle, 21, of Laleham Road, Catford, south-east London, was charged at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court with murdering Destiny Lauren.

A court official said he was remanded in custody to reappear at the Old Bailey on February 22 next year.

And from Pink News (link here):

A 35-year-old man who was arrested in connection with her murder has been bailed until next month.

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Related posts:

• London woman strangled; cis man arrested and bailed (November 10, 2009)

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A compilation of both posts was published at The F-Word (link here) on 13 November.

Rickie Lee Jones – The Moon Is Made Of Gold (Later Live With Jools Holland 10 Nov)

Don’t feel bad because the sun went down
The night has wealth untold
Just keep watching and you soon will see
The moon is made of gold

Now the stars appear
And as they do
Heaven they unfold
Don’t feel bad because the sun went down
The moon is made of gold

See how the shadows
Enhanced by the light above
Dance in the night
As the breezes sigh,
Soon you will be asleep
Into your dreams will creep
Visions of fairies flying through the sky

And one by one
Your dreams will all come true
Magic you’ll behold
Don’t feel bad because the sun went down
The moon is made of gold

See how the shadows
Enhanced by the light above
Dance in the night
As the breezes sigh
Soon you will be asleep
Into your dreams will creep
Visions of fairies flying through the sky

One by one
Your dreams will all come true
The night has a treasure in store for you
The night is magic
The moon is made of gold