Happy Trans Day of Remembrance, belated
Nov. 21st, 2022 11:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressCW: Basically existential despair specifically about being trans and the violence against transgender folk right now. If you are also trans or queer, you may wish to tread with caution.
There was a shooting at a queer club, because shitty people want trans people dead.
To be clear, I am a trans people. Shitty people want me to be dead and they are *thrilled* to say that quite loudly and blatantly all over twitter, and other parts of the world and media. It's difficult to sort out how many of them there are, because they're very loud, and plenty of people don't say anything at all one way or the other, so I'm not actually clear on whether they agree with the loud shitty people.
So I spend a lot of time just being aware of the fact that many of the people I meet would be happier if I was dead, and that the preferred thing is for them to be too cowardly to mention that fact.
(To be clear, shitty people might not think that they want me to be dead, but if you want me to stop being weird and stop using the pronouns you don't expect and stop correcting you when you say "miss" instead of "mx", then you want me dead. You don't get to want me to exist as something I'm not. You can either accept that I exist as I am -and try to refer to me correctly and honestly I do not give a shit if you succeed just prove to me that you are trying- or you can want to change a fundamental part of me and my trans siblings because you want us to stop existing and the only way we will stop existing is if we are dead.)
It was already being an extremely hard week in a hard month in a hard school year. I am dealing with my students having medical emergencies and one of the extended village-what-raised-me dying and there still being a pandemic on that everyone pretends is no longer happening. I was not happy that the Trans Day of Remembrance still has to exist (we will stop celebrating if you stop killing us, so that's one really easy way to shut us up is to just leave us the fuck alone.) and I was even less happy to hear about Yet Another Mass Shooting (and double-whammy, because I know there was an antisemitic one that luckily got shut down).
I know that I'm not good company right now, because I am nothing anymore except rage and pain and hollow sadness. I couldn't do a cute dinosaur for my whiteboard at school today, instead it is an angry one, and it is saying "stop killing queer people" which is the kind of statement that I worry about putting on the whiteboard because maybe someone will be uncomfortable and scold me for it. There wasn't a daily challenge in my discord server, but Elishka asked for it to be joy, which is very kind of them. I am not able to complete it.
Anyways, a friend and I gave blood today, so if you get a blood transfusion at MGH in the next few weeks, you may be filled with our lovely trans blood. If you donate blood on the regular, maybe this can be a good reminder to set up your next appointment as well.
And please remind anyone who will listen to stop murdering trans people.
~Sor
MOOP!
[Postscript] In the past I have largely not identified with the word trans (the whole point of non-binary is to not the binary, and shifting it to a cis-vs-trans one isn't better) but politically of late it has become more and more obvious to me that it's a useful umbrella term, and certainly cishets don't have the nuance to actually recognize any differences. Y'all want me dead like a trans person, so trying to claim I'm not one seems meaningless.]
Content warnings go both ways. Basically existential despair specifically about being trans and the violence against transgender folk right now. If you are also trans or queer, you may wish to tread with caution.
There was a shooting at a queer club, because shitty people want trans people dead.
To be clear, I am a trans people. Shitty people want me to be dead and they are *thrilled* to say that quite loudly and blatantly all over twitter, and other parts of the world and media. It's difficult to sort out how many of them there are, because they're very loud, and plenty of people don't say anything at all one way or the other, so I'm not actually clear on whether they agree with the loud shitty people.
So I spend a lot of time just being aware of the fact that many of the people I meet would be happier if I was dead, and that the preferred thing is for them to be too cowardly to mention that fact.
(To be clear, shitty people might not think that they want me to be dead, but if you want me to stop being weird and stop using the pronouns you don't expect and stop correcting you when you say "miss" instead of "mx", then you want me dead. You don't get to want me to exist as something I'm not. You can either accept that I exist as I am -and try to refer to me correctly and honestly I do not give a shit if you succeed just prove to me that you are trying- or you can want to change a fundamental part of me and my trans siblings because you want us to stop existing and the only way we will stop existing is if we are dead.)
It was already being an extremely hard week in a hard month in a hard school year. I am dealing with my students having medical emergencies and one of the extended village-what-raised-me dying and there still being a pandemic on that everyone pretends is no longer happening. I was not happy that the Trans Day of Remembrance still has to exist (we will stop celebrating if you stop killing us, so that's one really easy way to shut us up is to just leave us the fuck alone.) and I was even less happy to hear about Yet Another Mass Shooting (and double-whammy, because I know there was an antisemitic one that luckily got shut down).
I know that I'm not good company right now, because I am nothing anymore except rage and pain and hollow sadness. I couldn't do a cute dinosaur for my whiteboard at school today, instead it is an angry one, and it is saying "stop killing queer people" which is the kind of statement that I worry about putting on the whiteboard because maybe someone will be uncomfortable and scold me for it. There wasn't a daily challenge in my discord server, but Elishka asked for it to be joy, which is very kind of them. I am not able to complete it.
Anyways, a friend and I gave blood today, so if you get a blood transfusion at MGH in the next few weeks, you may be filled with our lovely trans blood. If you donate blood on the regular, maybe this can be a good reminder to set up your next appointment as well.
And please remind anyone who will listen to stop murdering trans people.
~Sor
MOOP!
[Postscript] In the past I have largely not identified with the word trans (the whole point of non-binary is to not the binary, and shifting it to a cis-vs-trans one isn't better) but politically of late it has become more and more obvious to me that it's a useful umbrella term, and certainly cishets don't have the nuance to actually recognize any differences. Y'all want me dead like a trans person, so trying to claim I'm not one seems meaningless.]
Content warnings go both ways. Basically existential despair specifically about being trans and the violence against transgender folk right now. If you are also trans or queer, you may wish to tread with caution.
no subject
on 2022-11-22 01:03 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2022-11-22 02:10 pm (UTC)Thank you for the postscript, it helped clear some confusion in my mind.
And for the record: I do not want you dead like a transperson, I want you alive like a friendperson, and I am so, so angry that there are asshats out there who are making that harder.
no subject
on 2022-11-22 04:00 pm (UTC)I read the whole thing.
I want you alive. I want my nibling alive. I want my trans/GNC/queer/etc friends and coworkers alive. I want LGBTQ+ people I have no connection at all with alive, and I want them to have places to be themselves together that are safe from violence at any scale, and I am filled with a combination of heartache and incandescent anger over Colorado Springs.
Now, to focus those feelings into continued action.