One In Four Includes Us Transwomen, Too

I was perusing my Facebook feed this afternoon when this comment jumped out at me.  It's a short conversation TransGriot contributing writer Pamela Hayes had with another transwoman in which Pam gave her a liberal dose of Reality 101.

They were talking about the subject of transwomen getting attacked or murder by hatemongers  when the transwoman in question parted her lips to say to Pam  "We look pretty, so no one will mess with us."

Really?   Take it away, Pam

Could anybody be that fucking naive. I'm sure there are haters who would want to annihilate a trans woman for being attractive and poised; for living in a nice home, driving a new car, having more education. For daring to be who they are and make no apologies for it. Most people who assault and maim GLBT people are losers. They are angry, disenfranchished, on society's periphery. And for any trans woman to suggest that no one will attack her because she is pretty is talking gibberish to say the least. Boy, I'd like to say more on this subject, but I'm at work. She insisted that she never heard of an attractive t-woman getting attacked, that that always happens to girls that don't look good. Utterly preposterous!

And flies in the face of logic and reason to boot.   One in four women will experience a sexual assault within their lifetimes and it ain't about how they look.  This is a crime of opportunity, aggression and power.

That one in four figure includes us transwomen.   While Pam and I have both been fortunate enough thank God to have not experienced that situation, I am keenly aware of other transwomen who have experienced and are coping with the aftermath of a sexual assault or anti-trans violence aimed at them..

I have also experienced having a transwoman I'm personally acquainted with being added to the Remembering Our Dead list and having two others I knew before the list existed fall victim to anti-trans hate murders.

As my gender therapist Dr. Collier Cole and my endo Dr. Lee Emery once told me, you get the good and the bad with transition.  Being a walking target for sexual assault is part of the bad. 

So is some random fool wanting to kill you because you are happily living your life as a transwoman or whatever other reason invades their warped minds.

And to that ignorant transwoman who shall remain nameless, there are plenty of attractive transwomen who are unfortunately six feet underground because someone hated them enough to kill them.



TransGriot Note: Photo is of Stacy Blahnik Lee of Philadelphia, whose killer is still at large.