Laurustina

I open Facebook this morning and scroll down the live feed to see what I’ve missed in the night. There is a reminder tucked in among the status updates and Mafia requests and variety of links, a notice that November 20th is the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

They’re having a candlelight vigil in Santa Cruz tonight and I wish I could be there. I click on the reminder and it takes me to the page of the organization which founded the event, intended to raise awareness of violence against trans-people. There’s a downloadable spreadsheet on the site where someone has meticulously cataloged the names and dates and violent deaths of more than five hundred transgender men and women worldwide. It is a sobering read. In California alone, there have been 57 violent deaths this year.

The first trans-person I ever knew was not my friend The Poet, though he taught me more than anyone about gender identity. The first trans-person I knew was a woman I worked with in a little greenhouse company here in the valley, during my sophomore year of college. She was the daughter of the company’s founder and the sister of its CEO. To their credit, they did not ostracize her completely. To their shame, they tucked her away in a back office and kept her out of the public eye. She was in her mid fifties, a seemingly sad and awkward woman and the butt of many an office joke. Even then, knowing as little as I did about, well much of anything, I thought it was a horrible way to treat someone who so obviously had been through so much. But oh, a “man in a dress” is still one of those things that

makes people giggle
makes people stare
makes people whisper
makes people feel confused
makes people uncomfortable
makes people feel threatened
makes people fearful
makes people angry
makes people violent
makes people do things they wouldn’t do, if she would just

be normal
behave
be a man
be ashamed
be quiet and stay inside
her house
her office
herself
or wherever it is people should stay,
when being who they really are “makes” other people

giggle
stare
whisper
confused
uncomfortable
threatened
fearful
angry
violent

I count myself lucky to have known and continue to know my share of strong and lovely trans men, but somehow this day reminds me especially of the brave and beautiful trans women whose paths have crossed mine, of Edna, and Dax, of my friend who I like to call The Queen of Dangerous Shoes…

…and last though never ever least, it reminds me of a certain fifteen year old boy, one I’d known quite well when he was a child, but who had become a virtual stranger by the time he said quite simply, “See, I know why I’m always angry. It’s because I’m sad. And I know why I’m always sad, it’s because I’m a girl.”

Suddenly, she was twice the stranger that he’d been moments ago, and I can’t even begin to imagine the expression on my own face, when she smiled sheepishly and said, “I am Ashlie.”

Though I cannot be with my friends tonight, I want them to know that I am there in spirit, that I honor and mourn with them at the loss of sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, parents and lovers and friends.