Last summer, Christina Sforza, a diabetic transgender woman, was eating with a friend at a New York City McDonald’s when she went to the bathroom to give herself an insulin injection. After checking with the counterperson, Sforza used the women’s bathroom. When she opened the door to leave, a McDonald’s manager struck her with a lead pipe. He continued to beat her with the pipe while bystanders cheered, “Kill the faggot!” When the police arrived, they refused to let Sforza speak and arrested her for assault.
“Being trans, you have to decide whether calling the police will help or hurt you,” said Tobi Hill-Meyer, a local writer and genderqueer activist. “That hesitation can mean the difference between life and death.” Genderqueer is a gender identity of both, neither or some combination of man and/or woman.
Monday night in the EMU’s Gumwood Room, Hill-Meyer, a 2005 University graduate with degrees in sociology and women’s and gender studies, spoke at Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Sponsored by the University’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Alliance and observed every Nov. 20, TDR is a nationwide event mourning the lives of transgender people who suffered violent deaths that year.
In her speech, Hill-Meyer outlined some of the institutional prejudices faced by transgender people, such as those in employment and healthcare, in addition to law enforcement. She said that sometimes desperate transgendered people turn to the sex industry in order to pay basic living expenses, such as rent and food, and still afford surgeries and hormone treatment.
“If you’re homeless or you might need rent money by the end of the week, you might be willing to compromise your safety for a place to stay for the night,” she said.
While Sforza is still alive, many transgender victims of violence are not, and Hill-Meyer closed her speech acknowledging them.
“Tonight we focus on the stories that won’t end well,” she said. “But I like to remind myself of the stories that are close calls: where people stand up, where people got help, where they just made it out on the their own, and the stories that are victories.”
Taking the stage, Maceo Persson said, “Tobi’s speech was very humbling and I think this date is very humbling.”
Persson, a transgender male, is a 2006 University graduate with a degree in ethnic studies.
Echoing Hill-Meyer’s sentiments about institutional discrimination, Persson acknowledged the additional prejudices faced by transgender females of color.
Persson, who works at Basic Rights Oregon, also noted that after gender identity was dropped from the federal Congress’ passing of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, trans-inclusive statewide non-discrimination and domestic partnership laws will take affect in January.
“It is important that in order to do justice to those people who cannot be with us anymore,” Persson said, “that we have to fight for transgender justice and we also have to fight in coalition with economic justice, racial justice and immigrant rights.”
Following the speeches, Cat McGraw, an assistant with Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Educational and Support Services Program, led the roughly 35 attendees in a candlelight memorial vigil on the balcony outside the Gumwood Room.
McGraw, a University graduate, was part of LGBTQA the first time the group sponsored TDR in 2002.
After participants read the names of this year’s victims – as well as their locations, dates and causes of death – everyone observed a moment of silence.
Back inside, there were refreshments and two large pieces of paper labeled “Transphobia is…” and “Ways I can support transpeople in my community…”
With brightly-colored markers, attendees added entries to the two lists. On the latter list, people wrote things such as being kind, not assuming, correcting people when they use the wrong pronouns and educating others. Items on the former included gender-specific bathrooms, using the word “tranny,” and the fact that it’s so much easier for biological females to get breast augmentations in comparison to transgender females.
“Those little things add up because it creates a culture where it marginalizes trans people,” said Tina Russell, a transgender University student who attended the event. “I hope that some of the social organizations that are sort of ignoring trans people … start to realize that all issues are inter-connected and you can’t push one without pushing all of them.”
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