More than Remembrance

Every year, we observe the Transgender Day of Remembrance on 20 November. It began in the US and spread across the world. It is now an international observance, and has helped raise awareness of violence against trans people, the sheer scale and brutality of it.

The Day of Remembrance is important. It has worked all over the world to put a human face to the harsh realities faced by trans people in all societies. It has given a voice to the trans community, which is usually silenced from all sides.

But now that the date has passed, I look back another year and feel that I want more.

On the Day of Remembrance, we celebrate lives cut tragically short. We celebrate them in their diversity and we mourn their passing. But essentially, these are lives destroyed brutally, and this tragedy does hang in the air for me. Passing is a constant concern for trans people for our own personal security. At a recent discussion on the venue of a trans conference, the issue of whether the area was 'safe' was raised. We needed to raise it, but it also dismayed me that this is still where we are. We have to prevent tragedies.

And this is a-ok. But what about the day-to-day ins and outs of being trans? Our only other meeting date in the calendar is Pride, and it is not always a friendly place to be.

The alliance between LGB, T, and of late, Queer and Intersex, is a tenuous alliance. It is an alliance based on the overlaps of different communities, both personal and political. Speaking just for the T part, we're finally realising that we cannot depend on the other letters to fight our fights. And that's fine. The cissexual lesbian community looks after many issues that only concern cissexual lesbians. Ditto for cissexual gay men.

Don't get me wrong. The alliance ought to be maintained, because pooling our resources makes us all stronger. But if we can recognise that our health issues are vastly different to those of other queer people, can we not say the same about Pride?

And I don't just mean a Pride day, with a parade and confetti, though that would be nice. I'm talking about pride, about happiness and self-respect. Early gay and lesbian lit dealt a lot with tragedy, and with good reason, due to the criminalisation of homosexuality in many parts of the world. Throughout the twentieth century, though, the tide slowly turned. As gains were made and sexuality became more open and liberated, the same happened with gay and lesbian cultural manifestations. Thus Gay Pride was born.

Trans folk are experiencing a similar process, especially now that we are in the public limelight. The trailblazers of trans liberation have a lot to say about owning our experiences, expressing them and being provocative. Kate Bornstein's writings come to mind, where she speaks about playing around with one's gender identity as a way of positive self-exploration. Leslie Feinberg's exploration of the role of trans folk in history in hir book, Transgender Warriors, gives a wider context in which to interpret the contemporary trans experience. Julia Serano talks about how, as trans people, we present a quandary that throws traditional notions of 'man' and 'woman' into question. And how this is something we should embrace.

When I'm surrounded by fellow trans folk, I hear incredible stories and experiences. Of love, of hot sex and hot kink, fun adventures in gender bending, as well as sometimes bittersweet dealings with our loved ones. There is sadness, and there is tragedy sometimes too. But there is so much more richness there, such diversity.

And these voices are talking. We're, as they say, standing up to be counted. We're talking about what a new vagina feels like and creating YouTube videos detailing different stages of transition. Trans men make the news, and a perhaps surprising amount of people seem fine with Thomas Beatie experiencing his life as he chooses it.

There is so much to be proud of, unwritten novels and unfilmed features with our stories. For me, there has been nothing more liberating in my life than to come out as a transsexual woman to myself.

I want us all to work to end the fear and hatred towards trans folk. I want to remember the dead who didn't need to be killed. But I also want the world to know there's much more to who we are. We are not pathetic. We are strong, incredibly so in many cases. We're civil servants, scientists, working and middle class. We're boys and girls and everything in between. We're lovers and writers, occasionally we drink too much and regret it the next day. And we can never do anything right, if you ask our parents.

In short, we're people. Not headlines.