Dr Rachel Levine, Pennsylvania’s secretary of health, has been tipped for a high-ranking position in the Joe Biden administration.
Levine is one of the highest-ranking transgender officials in the US, and has spent this year leading Pennsylvania’s response to the pandemic in the face of shameless transphobia.
Her hard work and decades of medical experience could soon be rewarded, with her name now attached to two key White House roles.
The LGBTQ Victory Fund, a political action committee (PAC) that helped elect hundreds of queer politicians in the 2020 election, has suggested Biden should appoint Levine either secretary of health and human services or US surgeon general.
Ruben Gonzalez, vice president of the PAC, said the organisation has already had “informal conversations” with the Biden transition team regarding LGBT+ appointments, and is “feeling very confident and very hopeful that we will see trans people serve in high-level roles in this administration”.
“Dr Rachel Levine has served Pennsylvania incredibly well as their secretary of health for a number of years, leading their response on COVID, and leading their response on the opioid crisis in Pennsylvania,” Gonzalez said, via the American Independent.
“I think someone like her is well-poised to serve at a high-level in a Biden administration.”
The LGBQT Victory Fund has made a number of other suggestions, includingPete Buttigieg for UN ambassador; Maura Healey, the first openly gay state attorney general, for US attorney general; Tammy Baldwin, the first out lesbian in Congress, for the Department of Health and Human Services; and Raphael Bostic, the first out gay man and first Black man to lead a regional bank for the Federal Reserve, as secretary of the treasury.
With more than 4,100 roles available in the incoming administration, the LGBTQ Victory Fund says that there should be at least 185 queer appointees in order for the new White House to be properly representative.
As Joe Biden prepares to take office in January, he has already begun naming staff to his presidential transition team.
Among them is Shawn Skelly, who was the first transgender veteran to get a presidential appointment when Barack Obama named her director of the Office of the Executive Secretariat at the Department of Transportation.
The former Navy commander will help Biden evaluate the Department of Defense, understanding how it operates and helping ensure a smooth transfer of power.
Trans youth are twice as likely to be depressed and seven times as likely to engage in risky sexual behaviours, a new study has found.
A Minnesota study of 411 teenagers who went to the emergency department at a hospital found that rates of cis and trans teenagers having sex was not significantly different – 20.8 per cent and 23.3 per cent, respectively – but that trans youth were more likely to use drugs or alcohol before sex.
The study found that 35.7 per cent of trans youth reported that they’d drunk alcohol or used substances before sex, compared with only 4.6 per cent of cis youth. Sexually active trans youth were also more likely not to have discussed STIs before sex than cis youth – 21 per cent compared to 6.2 per cent – and 78.5 per cent of trans youth didn’t discuss pregnancy prevention before having sex, compared to 50 per cent of cis youth.
Brianna S McMichael, of Children’s Minnesota in Minneapolis, led the study and reported the findings at a virtual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
McMichael told the meeting that gender-diverse youth are also more likely to say they have been depressed for at least half of the days in the fortnight prior, with a quarter of trans youth compared with 12.6 per cent of cis youth, and trans youth are three times as likely to have tried smoking as cis youth.
“With risky sexual behaviours, smoking, and depression, the next step in our process is to figure out how we safely identify youth and provide appropriate resources around these topics,” McMichael told MedPage Today. “That is a challenge to figure out how we are going to bring it up in clinical care, how often, and in ways that are safe.”
“Gender identity and sexual orientation are still considered sensitive or taboo topics in certain communities,” McMichael said. “Because we’re a pediatric institution, parents come with their children and, depending on the reason they’re visiting the ED, parents may or may not be able to step out.”
The survey asked children about the sex they were assigned at birth and whether they were genderqueer, gender fluid or trans, which all came under the “gender diverse” category used by the researchers. If youth told the survey they were trans, they were then asked if they were trans masc or trans femme.
While most estimates put trans people at around one per cent of the population, the Minnesota study found that 15.4 per cent of youth were gender-diverse.
This could be due to the fact that the hospital where the research took place recently opened a gender clinic for trans youth, as well as being recognised as being supportive of LGBT+ patients.
Angel Haynes has become at least the 34th transgender person to be murdered in the United States so far this year.
Haynes, 25, lived in Jackson, Tennessee, but was staying in a hotel in Whitehaven, Memphis when she was shot dead on October 25.
Police were called to the Motel 6 on East Brooks Road, near Fontaine Road, at 2.19am and she was pronounced dead at the scene.
Haynes, a cosmetologist, had contacted her friend Shinese Weddle earlier that evening to say that she would be staying at the motel.
“Angel wasn’t only my best friend, she was my sister,” Weddle said, according to WREG.
“She was the only friend I had and now she’s gone.”
The latest victim of an epidemic of violence against trans women, Haynes had promised to call Weddle and let her know that she arrived – but she was shot dead before she got the chance.
She was taken away from her mom, grandmother, uncle… she was taken away from all of us unexpectedly.
Weddle believes she was likely targeted because she was a Black trans woman, saying they “really don’t like people like that” in the Whitehaven area of Memphis.
Haynes is at least the 34th transgender person murdered this year.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help the family pay for Angel Haynes’ funeral and end-of-life expenses, as she did not have insurance.
“Angel was free-spirited and wasn’t afraid to be no-one but herself,” the fundraiser reads.
The friend described Haynes as “caring, determined, funny, smart and giving” and added: “Unfortunately, our time with her was cut very very short. She was MURDERED!! She was taken away from her mom, grandmother, uncle… she was taken away from all of us unexpectedly.”
Friends and family gathered on Friday (October 30) where they held a candlelit vigil to remember Haynes.
The US airforce has finally granted an honourable discharge to a trans veteran whose life was marred by mental illness, homelessness, unemployment and drug use.
In 1984 Kelly Katherine Roser’s exemplary military career was upended by a one-time positive drug test for marijuana, which she used as a form of self-medication for the distress of her gender dysphoria.
For years she battled with the shame of her discharge, until now. At 59 years old, Roser has finally received the full honours she earned.
“Soldiers don’t fight for the flag or the Constitution – they fight for other soldiers. When you let them down, it is the worst feeling in the world,” she told the Daily News.
“Even with an honourable discharge, I may have failed at life but I am worthy to stand in their ranks.”
Roser struggled with her gender identity from the age of 13, but was unable to articulate her feelings. “I wanted to scream that I was a woman,” she said, “but the only answer I had was that I wanted to join the Air Force to make me a man. That didn’t quite turn out as expected.”
In her search for a sense of belonging Roser enlisted in the military in 1977. She was quickly promoted to the rank of staff sergeant, but still couldn’t shake the feeling there was something wrong inside.
As her emotional problems began to surface she was belittled by lower ranks and disrespected by her peers. She became prone to mental outbursts, which were met with “confusion and laughter” by her fellow airmen.
A psychiatric evaluation determined no problems and made no mention of gender dysphoria, which wasn’t commonly diagnosed at the time. Roser was unable to reach her full potential because the Air Force entirely missed the reason for her deteriorating mental state, her attorneys say.
“It is no surprise that Ms Roser’s mental health problems continued until they reached a breaking point,” they said in their legal brief, as seen by the Daily News. “This happened time and time again, and the end result was always the same.”
To cope, trans veteran Roser self-medicated with alcohol and, in her private quarters on base, cross-dressed and smoked marijuana.
“When I got my general discharge my life was over,” said Roser, who now struggles with vivid nightmares, bipolar depression and PTSD. “I wish I could have had a military career but, if I couldn’t have been a female, it would have been destructive.”
Her trauma only continued after she left the Air Force. Her emotional outbursts caused her to be fired from more than two dozen jobs, and she attempted suicide three times.
The pressure only eased when she transitioned in 2012. Now after decades of struggle, the final burden of her military discharge has also been lifted.
State Rep. Brianna Titone, who made history in 2018 when she became the first transgender lawmaker in Colorado, is now running for her second term. But while her platform focuses on the bread-and-butter issues of transportation, education and jobs, her opponents have targeted her gender identity.
The group Take Back Colorado released a Facebook ad this month that misgenders Titone and refers to her by her “deadname,” the name she used before her transition. The ad also claims Titone has “always supported violence” and sexualizes children.
“It’s just a nasty, transphobic ad that’s blatantly full of lies,” Titone told NBC News.
Take Back Colorado is registered to Joe Neville, the brother of Patrick Neville, the Republican state House minority leader. When questioned by The Denver Post, Patrick Neville denied the ad was transphobic, saying it simply showed “the facts.”
Titone said the strategy backfired. She raised $11,000 in the 36 hours after the ad ran —about 20 percent of all online contributions to her campaign this cycle — and said she now had contributions from 43 out of 50 states.
“I’m getting support from places all over the country now,” she said. “People recognized that there was a group of people trying to beat up someone who is doing a really good job.”
Titone is not the only target of anti-LGBTQ political ads. Many LGBTQ candidates this cycle have been subjected to such attacks, prompting advocates to worry that it has become a trend.
“The homophobic and transphobic attacks on LGBTQ candidates are more frequent and more direct than we have seen in at least a decade,” said former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who now runs the LGBTQ Victory Fund, a national organization that trains and promotes LGBTQ political candidates.
“The dog whistles of the last few cycles are still prominent, but they are secondary to more direct and blatant uses of anti-LGBTQ stereotypes that weaponize our sexualities in an effort to derail campaigns,” Parker added. “LGBTQ candidates are being falsely called ‘pedophiles,’ ‘sexual predators’ and ‘drug users.’ They are being told they are ‘deplorable’ and should ‘go to church.’ They are being misgendered. And their dating histories — including their use of dating apps — have become the targets of opponents.”
Competitive races
Many of the attacks are happening in close races in competitive districts, like Titone’s.
“My race was one of the hardest races to win in 2018, and I’m a top targeted seat in the House right now,” Titone said of the Colorado House of Representatives.
Gabriele Magni, an assistant professor of political science at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, said homophobic and transphobic attack ads “can be especially powerful and especially hurtful in districts that are not very progressive to start with.”
“They can bring out fear in the electorate,” Magni said. “It’s from an old playbook … trying to create fear about what can happen if transgender people are in office, or if people who are allies with transgender people are in office.”
Magni added that anti-LGBTQ attack ads are actually “validation of the strength and competitiveness of LGBTQ candidates.”
Gina Ortiz Jones, the Democratic nominee for a House seat in West Texas in San Antonio, Texas, on Aug. 10, 2018.Eric Gay / AP file
Gina Ortiz Jones, who’s running in Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, has been the subject of attacks funded by the National Republican Campaign Committee. The committee ran an ad last week implying that Jones, a U.S. Air Force veteran, would put military “patriots out of work” so she could “divert military money for transgender reassignment surgeries.”
In August, HuffPost reported that the committee had been encouraging outside groups to remind Texas voters in Jones’ swing district about her sexual orientation.
“The national fundraising arm of the Republican Party has declared war on LGBTQ candidates this election cycle — and homophobia and transphobia are their weapon of choice,” Parker said. “It is despicable that Republicans would attack a military veteran simply because she believes the trans soldiers who risked their lives beside her deserve fair treatment when they return home.”
Jon Hoadley is a Democratic member of the Michigan House of Representatives and is currently running for Congress. Fran Dwight
Jon Hoadley, an openly gay congressional candidate in Michigan, has been the subject of an attack ad from the Congressional Leadership Fund, a PAC dedicated to electing Republicans to Congress, that has been criticized as homophobic. The ad makes reference to Hoadley’s sexual history and calls his judgment “disturbing.” Hoadley is running against an incumbent Republican, Fred Upton, who has not denounced the advertisement.
The ad drew from Hoadley’s personal blog that he kept in his early 20s. On the now-deleted blog, Hoadley wrote about going to a gay bar and mentioned “a four year old wearing a thong” in a post about a friend’s wedding. Hoadley has apologized in a Facebook video for any misunderstanding stemming from the posts.
Chris Pack, a spokesperson for the National Republican Campaign Committee, defended the ads.
Holding Hoadley accountable for “his disgusting comments about toddlers in thongs has nothing to do with his sexual orientation,” Pack told NBC News, “and the same is true regarding Gina Jones wanting to divert money from the military to foot the bill for transgender reassignment procedures.”
Progressive strongholds
Personal attacks on LGBTQ candidates can also occur in progressive strongholds.
Ritchie Torres, who is a shoo-in to win his seat in New York’s 15th Congressional District and become the first Afro-Latinx LGBTQ person in Congress, was called derogatory names on social media that many interpreted to be homophobic.
Torres was called a “first class whore” in a now deleted tweet by Ed Mullins, an officer with the New York Police Department and president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association.
The comments came after Torres criticized the NYPD amid an increase in gun violence. Mullins said his comments “had nothing to do” with Torres’ “race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.”
“My comments had everything to do with his dangerous policies and worldview,” Mullins stated. “The city is burning and Councilman Torres wants to blame the police.”
New York City Council Member Ritchie Torres, left, in New York on March 19, 2018.Richard Drew / AP file
Magni said attacks like this are not surprising. He said that many of the attacks this cycle are “based on homophobic tropes” that cast gay men as promiscuous or sexual predators.
“American voters are OK with LGBTQ candidates if LGBTQ candidates are sexless,” Magni said.
Despite Torres’ near guaranteed win in November, personal attacks could still have a negative impact.
“The way homophobic attacks work in progressive strongholds … is by hurting candidates in an indirect way,” Magni said. “Some of these attacks isolate LGBTQ candidates and force some allies to distance themselves.”
Like-minded organizations might put endorsements on hold or volunteers and donors may pause contributions, causing LGBTQ candidates to “lose access to resources and allies that are needed at critical moments,” Magni added.
For example, openly gay Illinois state House candidate Ken Mejia-Beal has been subjected to comments from his opponent, Republican Rep. Amy Grant, that target his race and sexuality.
On a recorded fundraising call over the summer, Grant said, “That’s all we need is another person in the Black Caucus.” She went on to say: “I just think that maybe he’s afraid of the reaction that people might give him. Not because he’s Black, but because of the way he talks. He’s all LGBTQ.”
Equality Illinois, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy group, condemnedthe remarks as “racist and homophobic.”
Grant subsequently apologized, saying she “deeply regret[s] the comments” and added that they “do not reflect my heart or my faith.”
Mejia-Beal, however, does not buy Grant’s apology and said she’s out of touch with the people in his district. “She is not a nice person,” he said, adding that Grant’s comments reflect racist and bigoted beliefs.
Grant’s campaign also circulated a mailer insinuating that Mejia-Beal was connected to a cover-up of a sexual assault over a decade ago.
“Right out of the gate, when she started attacking me, I didn’t understand where it was coming from,” Mejia-Beal said. “When I heard the audio, that’s when I had the a-ha moment.”
Mejia-Beal’s opponents may have perceived his candidacy as more vulnerable to attacks because of his multiple marginalized identities.
Magni recently conducted research exploring voters’ reactions to LGBTQ candidates and found that gay men — particularly Black gay men — were the most likely to be penalized by voters.
“In the U.S., Black candidates are penalized more than white candidates for being gay, in addition to the separate, individual penalties that they face for sexual orientation and race,” he said.
He added that this penalty “does not come from Black voters.” When compared to white voters, he added, “Black voters are now more supportive overall of LGBTQ candidates, since LGBTQ candidates tend to be Democrats.”
Personal safety
Personal attacks can also threaten LGBTQ candidates’ personal safety.
Jenna Wadsworth, an openly bisexual candidate for North Carolina’s commissioner of agriculture, received rape and death threats after posting a TikTok video criticizing President Donald Trump, according to the Advocate.
Todd Gloria, a member of the California State Assembly and candidate for mayor in San Diego, also received threats of physical violence that his campaign said were incited by his opponent, fellow Democrat Barbara Bry.
Gloria came under criticism after he voted for SB 145, a bill that addresses anti-LGBTQ discrimination in the application of the sex offender registry.
“We have reported the threats to the San Diego Police Department, and they are currently investigating,” Gloria said in a statement. “While I refuse to let this paralyze our campaign, voters deserve to know that this is what Barbara Bry’s campaign is inspiring. Her campaign is bringing out the worst of who we are. We are so much better than this, and San Diegans should hold her and her campaign accountable this November.”
Bry’s campaign disputed Gloria’s claims and stressed that Bry is a “long-time supporter of LGBTQ rights.”
“While she disagrees with Todd Gloria on the issue of requiring those convicted of sexual assault on children to be placed on the state’s sex offender registry, regardless of sexual orientation, her campaign has never raised this issue in campaign advertising,” Tom Shepard, Bry’s campaign consultant, told NBC News in an email. “This controversy is a result of verbal attacks on Gloria by a rival leader in San Diego’s LGBTQ community, who criticized Gloria’s vote on this issue.”
Non-LGBTQ targets
Targets of homophobic or transphobic ads may not even be LGBTQ. For example, the American Principles Project, a conservative think tank and PAC, released an ad targeting presidential candidate Joe Biden and Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., alleging that they support “policies which would allow biological males to compete in women’s sports and push children into dangerous, life-altering sex-change” procedures.
Magni said such ads are designed to “galvanize the most conservative base,” so these voters turn out on Election Day. The idea is to depict Biden and Peters “as out-of-touch liberals who threaten ‘traditions,’” Magni said.
‘Chilling effects’
While a record number of LGBTQ candidates are running for office this year, some advocates fear anti-LGBTQ attacks could derail this progress.
“The last few election cycles we have seen the number of LGBTQ candidates increase dramatically, but this trend is not inevitable,” Parker said. “Already we are hearing from LGBTQ elected officials that they may not seek higher office because they don’t want to expose their loved ones and families to these deeply personal attacks.”
Magni said these attacks could have a long-lasting impact.
“The damage that is done is not only to candidates right now but the potential chilling effects among younger LGBTQ people who are thinking about running,” he said. “It’s not only about scrutiny. Their personal lives are going to be distorted. Their dating lives are going to be weaponized … It makes them think twice.”
For her part, Titone is determined to keep campaigning and support the presence of other transgender women in office.
“When you are only 1 of 4 transgender legislators in the whole county, representation matters,” Titone said. “We cannot take a step back in trans representation at this point.”
Another transgender American has died by violence, bringing this year’s total of trans or gender-nonconforming homicide victims in the nation to 33.
Sara Blackwood, 29, was shot around 10 p.m. Sunday in Indianapolis, The Indianapolis Starreports. She died shortly afterward at a local hospital.
Police said she was apparently walking home from work when she was shot, Indianapolis TV station WXIN reports. She had worked at a Kroger grocery store for several years, but she was on her way home from a different job, according to the station.
“She was very sweet and a very good person,” her friend Jimmy Johnson, a Kroger coworker, told the station. She provided excellent service to customers, he said. “She was very quick, so if they had a problem at the self-checkout, she would be right there,” he noted.
“The world at large is missing a very kind, responsible person,” Johnson added.
Activists mourned her death as well. “Six transgender women have been killed over the last 23 days — which is just over three weeks — in this country. This violence is heartbreaking and horrifying. It must end,” Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for the Human Rights Campaign’s Transgender Justice Initiative, said in a press release.
“We have already seen more trans and gender-nonconforming people killed this year since we began tracking these deaths in 2013, and the numbers continue to climb, even during a pandemic. We must all ask ourselves what each of us is doing to work to bring this violence to an end. We are mourning Sara’s loss along with her friends and family, including her domestic partner Avery, who are all in our thoughts. As we take time to remember Sara, we’ll keep fighting for the lives for all trans and gender-nonconforming people.”
With 33 homicides of trans people reported in the U.S., 2020 is the deadliest year since activists and media outlets began keeping records. The previous high was 31 in 2017. The number for any given year is likely higher, given that many victims are misgendered in death (as Blackwood initially was) or their deaths not reported at all.
Kendall Stephens, a trans woman who survived a horrific transphobic attack in her own home, has described the shocking reaction by police who “cracked jokes while she bled onto the floor”.
Warning: contains graphic descriptions of violence against a trans person.×
The 34-year-old was studying and enjoying a quiet night in with her two goddaughters, aged 12 and 16, when she heard a fight breaking out outside her house in South Philadelphia.
When the group refused to disperse, she called emergency services, but one of the women turned on her and punched her in the face. The attacked and her friends then forced their way into Stephens’s house to continue the assault.
Recalling the attack in an interview with Human Rights Campaign, Stephens said: “I ended up in my dining room getting attacked by four women at all sides of me, and then suddenly one of the women picked up a wooden decorative planter and began hitting me about my head and face with it, causing me to become concussed and black out momentarily.
“Throughout the attack the woman referred to me as a ‘man’ and ‘tranny’.
“The assault did not end there. Several men stormed into the home as well and pulled the women away, but did not pull them away before getting a few hits in as well and calling me the N word and a ‘f**king tranny’.”
Police refused to arrest trans woman’s attacker.
Stephens was left with her nose broken in two places, bruised ribs, swelling on her face, a head contusion, “a busted lip” and damaged gum vessels that caused two of her teeth to become necrotic.
When the police arrived, however, they had little sympathy for the trans woman who had been brutally beaten.
“The responding police officers were very unhelpful,” said Stephens.
“They were belligerent and unsympathetic and refused to arrest one of my attackers, who I had ID’d to them (she was a few doors down continuing to hurl transphobic slurs while they were there).
“Furthermore, they said that by looking at my injuries, they regarded the incident as a simple assault, and as such, I had to make a private criminal complaint.”
While this was happening, her husband arrived home, and they both begged with police to take action. They left without confirming the attackers’ identities or making any arrests.
Ivon Garcia, 26, grew up two exits from the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego. Garcia was so steeped in Mexican-American culture and Spanish that Garcia “didn’t really conceptualize someone not knowing Spanish.”
At a young age, Garcia identified as nonbinary. But this got consistently swept under the rug by Garcia’s extended family, who was often hostile to anyone different.
“To me, Spanish and Mexican, Chicano, Xicano, Mexican-American culture has consisted of being a matter of ‘one or the other, otherwise not acknowledged,’” Garcia said. “There is so much unsaid, but still judged, because it simply doesn’t fit.”
It didn’t take long into Garcia’s teen years to realize that the pronoun “ella”—which means “her” or “she” in Spanish, did not describe Garcia.
“‘Ella’ communicated something to others that seemed so profoundly wrong,” Garcia said. “‘Ella’ was for my tías (aunts) and mother who I could resonate with but still felt a departure from. ‘Ella’ encompassed so much that I wasn’t, that I rejected it.”
So Garcia began to search for an alternative in Spanish, the way that “they/them” is used in English instead of “he/him” or “she/hers.” Garcia settled on “elle,” a still-emerging pronoun not used by many Spanish speakers.
As an alternative to “él” (he) and “ella” (she), Garcia says “elle,” which is pronounced EH’-jeh, gives them more agency in conversations with other Spanish speakers.
“‘Elle’ is a tool to me, a way to communicate something that I want, a way to test the waters and see if I can be me,” Garcia said.
Not mainstream—at least not yet
In recent years, activists and academics in the U.S. and Latin America have opened a dialogue about inclusivity in Spanish, a gender-defined language in which most nouns are assigned either a masculine -o ending or a feminine -a ending. The -e ending has become common as other gender-inclusive terms like “Latinx” and “Latine” grow in prominence.
As pronoun options for trans and nonbinary individuals become more recognized in the United States, linguists say a similar push can be seen in Spanish-speaking countries.
Mexican-American lexicographer and Amherst University professor Ilan Stavans told NBC Latino that he’s heard the “elle” pronoun used in progressive and academic spaces, but not so much in the mainstream yet.
“They resemble the efforts done in the United States to give that type of linguistic neutrality,” Stavans said. “They seem to me to be scattered.”
Stavans referred to a recent study by the Pew Research Center that concluded only 23 percent of Spanish-speakers in the U.S. have heard of “Latinx” and only 3 percent use the term to describe themselves. Stavans says he supports the move toward gender-inclusive language, but hasn’t seen evidence that it’s catching on on a large scale.
“The Spanish language is so gender specific,” he said. “There are 450 million speakers of Spanish throughout the Americas. It’s a very diverse and heterogeneous population.”
In her 16-student Spanish class, NYU associate professor Laura Torres-Rodriguez makes sure to give everyone the chance to share their pronouns. On the first day of school this semester, she asked everyone to put their pronouns in their screen-names — “él”, “ella”, or “elle”. Students in her advanced-level class told her it’s the first time a Spanish teacher has ever offered that to them.
“Teaching the use of the nonbinary pronoun in Spanish is I think crucial if you want all your students to feel safe and included,” she said. “I’m learning all the time and changing my teaching and speaking practices to better achieve this.”
Torres-Rodriguez says the problem of the “elle” pronoun catching on is more of a political one than a linguistic one, as with the -e ending, “you can easily have concordance between the noun and the adjective.”
“The use of the “elle” pronoun is to me an essential step in recognizing and including the experience of trans and nonbinary persons and to start exiting the gender binarism that generates so much social and political violence,” Torres-Rodriguez said.
Even for Garcia, the “elle” pronoun takes some getting used to for someone who has spoken and heard Spanish their whole life.
“Even to me, elle/elles is new, is a bit off-tune when spoken, and a splash of curiosity when heard,” Garcia said. “It’s a work in progress where I’m learning how Spanish, how my culture, how my identity, how my family will receive me, all of me, all the different aspects that encompass me.”
Check out the many events for Trans Empowerment Month at Stand With Trans! Stand with Trans has a month-long event filled with virtual programming for trans people and their supporters that starts TOMORROW! We are starting off the month with a keynote from Michigan’s Teacher of the Year, Owen Bondono, who is a trans man. The program is free for youth under 25, and $50 for adults to attend. There are many incredible programs — a panel of trans people who work in entertainment, youth-only spaces, talks for trans allies, educational talks from surgeons, and more! Check it out!
Mark your calendars for Transgender Day of Remembrance: Friday November 20th at 5pm
The Spahr Center will once again hold an event to mark Transgender Day of Remembrance – November 20, 2020. Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) was started in 1999 by transgender advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith as a vigil to honor the memory of Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was killed in 1998. The vigil commemorated all the transgender people lost to violence since Rita Hester’s death, and began an important tradition that has become the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance.
TDOR founder Gwendolyn Ann Smith, TDOR founder, says “Transgender Day of Remembrance seeks to highlight the losses we face due to anti-transgender bigotry and violence. I am no stranger to the need to fight for our rights, and the right to simply exist is first and foremost. With so many seeking to erase transgender people — sometimes in the most brutal ways possible — it is vitally important that those we lose are remembered, and that we continue to fight for justice.”
The Spahr Center held a moving event in 2019 to mark TDOR, and a committee of local activists is currently planning what will be a second important commemoration. Please mark your calendar to join us, and watch for additional information about the event.
A 33-year-old Georgia woman has become at least the 31st transgender or gender-nonconforming person to die by violence in the U.S. this year, according to LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.
Felycya Harris.via Human Rights Campaign
Felycya Harris was shot and killed Saturday in Meadowbrook Park in Augusta, Georgia. On Monday, the Richmond County coroner classified her death as a homicide.
Human Rights Campaign, which has been tracking transgender deaths since2013, said it has never seen such a high number of deaths at this point in the year, with more additional deaths likely unreported or misreported.
“More accurate reporting may be a factor in the high number of deaths that we have tracked,” Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for HRC’s Transgender Justice Initiative, told NBC News. “But we are also at an extremely vitriolic period, where hate is fueled even from our nation’s highest office.”
The figure is all the more disturbing given the global lockdowns during the pandemic. Trans and gender-nonconforming people experience higher levels of violence from people they know, Cooper added, and may not be able to find refuge.https://dataviz.nbcnews.com/projects/20200714-trans-homicide-annual-barchart/index.html?initialWidth=560&childId=embed-20200714-trans-homicide-annual-barchart&parentTitle=Killings%20of%20transgender%20Americans%20reach%20all-time%20high%2C%20rights%20group%20says&parentUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Ffeature%2Fnbc-out%2Fkillings-transgender-americans-reach-all-time-high-rights-group-says-n1242417
“These are especially dangerous times and resources for help are limited at best,” she said. “We need to ensure that transgender and gender non-conforming people have equal and safe access to any resources they may need to thrive — at all times, but especially during this pandemic.”‘Everybody’s going to remember Felycya’
Harris, an interior decorator, worked in a furniture store and taught dance.
“To know Felycya is to love her smile, her giving spirit,” said friend Sandra Taylor, who launched an online fundraiser to help cover funeral expenses.
“Everybody’s going to remember Felycya,” another friend, Ricola Collier, told local NBC affiliate WRDW-TV. “That laugh. The smile — the smiles. The talks. The arguments. The attitudes. Everybody is going to remember who Felycya Harris is. Nobody would ever forget who that is.”
On Tuesday, HRC President Alphonso David said Harris’ passing marked a “grim milestone” in a year already full of tragedy. It put 2020 on par with 2017’s count for the highest number of transgender killings, with nearly three months still left to go.
Six transgender women were killed in July alone, as was nonbinary activist Summer Taylor, making it the deadliest month to date.
“This epidemic of violence, which is particularly impacting transgender women of color, must and can be stopped,” David said in a statement. “We must work to address the factors that underpin this culture of violence and openly discuss how the intersection of racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia and transphobia work to deprive transgender and gender-nonconforming people of equal access to opportunity and necessities like employment, housing and health care.”
Collier said she just wants justice for Harris’ death. Georgia passed a hate-crime law in June, but it does not expressly include gender identity.
“The only thing we got left now is just the memories and the pictures, and the videos,” she told WRDW-TV, which reported that police are still searching for a suspect. “Since the day I found out what happened, I go back and watch the videos every day,”
Harris is the fourth trans person to die by violence in the U.S. in just the past three weeks, according to HRC. Her murder comes just four days after the shooting death of Michelle Michellyn Ramos Vargas, a transgender woman in Puerto Rico.
Ramos, a nursing school student, was found the morning of Sept. 30 along an isolated road near a farm in San German, a town of about 35,000 on the southwestern part of the island.
Ramos’ death was the latest in a string of brutal killings of transgender people in Puerto Rico. So far, six have been reported this year, though there may be more.
“Transgender women in Puerto Rico are very scared,” said Arianna Lint, CEO of Arianna’s Center, which works to uplift trans women of color on the island. “We’ve never seen so many deaths happen so fast.”
On April 11, Penélope Díaz Ramírez, a 31-year-old transgender woman, was beaten and hanged at a men’s prison in Bayamon.
A little more than a week later, on April 22, the charred bodies of two other trans women — Layla Peláez, 21, and Serena Angelique Velázquez, 32 — were found in Humacao inside the remains of a car that had been set on fire.
After seeing images of them with the victims on social media, the U.S. Justice Department arrested two men, Juan Carlos Pagán Bonilla, 21, and Sean Díaz de León, 19. Bonilla confessed to the killings, El Nuevo Dia reported, and the two men have become the first people in Puerto Rico to face federal hate crime charges.
In February, Neulisa Luciano Ruiz, also known as Alexa, was fatally shot after using the women’s restroom in a McDonald’s in Toa Alta. Her assailants reportedly posted video of the shooting on social media.
In March, Yampi Méndez Arocho, a 19-year-old transgender man, was shot and killed in Moca, just hours after being assaulted by an unknown woman. Arocho’s mother reportedly called the police about the assault, but it’s not clear if there was an investigation.
Transgender people in Puerto Rico have become more visible in the past year or two, making them more of a target, according to Lint. Trans women tend to avoid the police, she added, going to each other for help instead. She said the government isn’t particularly supportive and neither are gay groups.
“They created an LGBT committee to advise the government, but there’s no one transgender on it. The life of a lesbian in Puerto Rico is very different of a transgender woman of color,” Lint explained.
Pedro Julio Serrano, an LGBTQ activist in Puerto Rico, said not enough is being done to stop anti-transgender violence on the island.
“A state of emergency for gender violence has not been decreed — there is nothing,” he said in a statement on his website.
Puerto Ricans are voting for a new governor on Nov. 3, but Serrano said most of the candidates just use LGBTQ people “as a political ball to get votes from people who hate us.” Only one candidate, Alexandra Lúgaro, has said she would support LGBTQ individuals if elected, according to Serrano.
“She’s also been the only one to speak about sex workers, which is very important,” Lint says. “Because, in Puerto Rico, one of the primary financial outlets for transgender women is sex work.”
