Every person who entered the EMU Ballroom on Monday night was asked to grab a balloon that represented his or her gender: blue for males and pink for females. Before the audience knew the event had started, Curtis Friedline scoured the crowd and reprimanded people he said chose the wrong balloon.
“We are trying to set a standard here,” Friedline shouted to one participant in the skit, before separating her from the rest of the crowd.
“The key thing of the performance piece was to humanize transgender people,” said former University student Toby Hill-Meyer, who coordinated the piece. “A lot of people see transgenders as plot twists. When a person next to you is verbally assaulted, it brings it home.”
The performance art piece was one segment of the Transgender Day of Remembrance, an event put on by the Lane Gender Task Force that commemorated the 27 reported murders of transgender people internationally in the last year. The night also featured a guest speaker and an open forum.
Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, was scheduled as the event’s keynote speaker, but she couldn’t make the trip. Instead, Lisa Mottet, the Transgender Civil Rights Project Legislative Lawyer for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, addressed the crowd.
Her speech started on a somber note when she talked about violence toward transgender people, especially those of color. She then lightened the mood.
“I tend to be an optimistic person,” Mottet told the crowd. “I think that is where we need to be as a movement. That is where we will exceed.”
Mottet focused on impoverished gender-variant people who are harassed daily. These people live a downwardly mobile life, Mottet said.
A couple of summers ago, Mottet said, five transgender people were attacked in one week, resulting in three deaths. The community spoke out.
“When we asked them what they wanted, they didn’t request hate crime laws like you would think. They asked for jobs and job-skill training,” Mottet said.
“The challenge for us is to not just change the system for upper- and middle-class transgender people,” Mottet said. “The homeless shelters need to be safer.”
Mottet emphasized education as a way of preventing harassment and violence toward transgender people and other minorities, especially in schools.
Another topic of the night was transgender allies.
Mottet said the transgender community needs allies from outside the circle to create more policies and spread awareness, allowing transgender people to fit in everyday situations.
A candlelight vigil concluded the event by honoring the 27 transgender people killed since Aug. 20, 2004 in hate crimes. One candle was lit for each name read off of a list. A moment of silence followed.
The Transgender Day of Remembrance is held every year in November. It began to honor Rita Hester, whose murder in 1998 brought the “Remembering Our Dead” Web-site project and a San Francisco vigil in 1999.
Glow sticks were also handed out outside the EMU Ballroom to celebrate life.
“I think it’s real important to remember those who passed away, but also those who are living,” said University student and Lane Gender Task Force member Maceo Persson. “Ultimately, we need social justice for those doing the living, in honor of those that have passed.”

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