Organizing against police violence against women and trans people of color
Not my originally planned first post, but this is important.
Brownfemipower posted:
The amazing women of Incite! Women of Color Against Violence have created a powerful brochure about how to end police violence against women and trans people of color. My recommendation? PRINT IT OUT AND DISTRIBUTE!!!!! Also, if you would like copies of the brochure, you can also e-mail incite_national@yahoo.com, with the number of copies you’d like and an address to send it to!
Look at Remembering Our Dead and see just how many of those dead are trans people of color. How many of those men and women died because the police did not take their claims seriously or worse? How many trans people of color suffer police violence and abuse? Too many. As a white trans woman, I’ve been fortunate enough to have two near-misses when it comes to police abuse - and in both cases, I had been on hormones for slightly over a year, and looked ambiguously gendered – but I’ve been in many situations where I could have been subjected to it. I know how many times I’ve had to call the police for assistance, and I know how quickly they could decide I was the problem. Fortunately for me, this isn’t a routine danger. As long as I don’t do anything to attract the wrong kind of police attention, I’m relatively safe.
Women and trans people of color are not.
Thank you for the link to the Remembering Our Dead site! I’d never seen it before. It’s heartbreaking to look at all the pictures of these beautiful people and realize that they were killed simply for being who they are. This is such a brutal world we live in.
By the way, I’m really excited to see you blogging now. I can’t wait to read more from you!
bint alshamsa
31 Oct 07 at 7:12 pm
I’m glad to spread it around. Trans people are murdered at such a high rate relative to our numbers it’s just insane. When I first came across Remembering Our Dead, the citation was that it was the highest per capita in the nation – higher than black men.
Of course, repeating that tends to get a reaction as if I said more trans people than black men are murdered every year, so I just let the site speak for itself. Learning that statistic was frightening at the time, and just gets worse.
Anyway, I hope I can pull off deconstructing some transphobic writings here. I don’t expect to convince the people who write them (many more articulate than me have tried), but it’ll be cathartic at least, and maybe someone who needs to get it will get it.
Thank you for coming over. :)
Lisa Harney
31 Oct 07 at 7:43 pm
It’s certainly great to see you blogging! Can’t wait for some of the discussions that I’m sure will take place!
WELCOME to BLOGDONIA! :)
DaisyDeadhead
31 Oct 07 at 10:05 pm
I can see how the statistic about the per capita deaths of transgendered people might get some people to start protesting but the truth is the truth. In fact, I think it shows how much we NEED each other. You just can’t get away from the intersectionality of oppressions. Now what would really be nice is if we could get marginalized people to see that and stop letting the “divide and conquer” work as well as it does.
bint alshamsa
2 Nov 07 at 7:40 pm
I agree completely. Monica at TransGriot and brownfemipower have both made similar points about trans people allying with people of color – and I agree with them. Civil rights is civil rights, and I do think that it would be very nice if we could support each other in getting them.
If we could organize and not fight each other, if white women, if people with disabilities, people of color, gay men, lesbian women, bisexual people, and trans people…if we could and would support each other, act as allies, and not sell each other out for short-term gains or easy victories, I can only imagine where that could take us. I am positive the whole would be greater than the sum of its parts.
Lisa Harney
2 Nov 07 at 10:36 pm
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