Lighting A Candle

Today is November 1, and the solemn countdown has begun towards our observance of the 11th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance.

In twenty days in locations all over the world, transpeople and our family members, friends and allies will stand in solidarity with us and help is mourn the people who tragically fell victim to trans hate violence.

We will read their names, light candles for them, shed some tears, pray for them, and resolve to make sure that what happened to them and their lives will never be forgotten.

This is not a happy-happy joy-joy event, nor should it be. It is a memorial.

But after we are done memorializing our fallen transpeeps, we need to be doing some hard, solid thinking about what we can do in our various locales to stem the tide of violence. We need to cooperatively work together with each other and our allies to stop the madness.

The candle is a symbol. When lit, it brings immediate light to a darkened room. When we began to draw attention to the horrific levels of violence visited upon our community, we shed light on that problem and sparked the national and eventual worldwide discussion and effort to combat the problem.

While it doesn't bring back the people we've already lost, what the TDOR does do is far more important. It gets the greater society to think about and focus needed attention on our community and realize we are human beings, too.

It hopefully will also move them to act in concert with us to end the scourge of anti-transgender violence that plagues it.

One Speech Down, Another To Go

Now that a week has passed since I visited the Bryn Mawr campus, my attention is now focused on the speech I'm presently compiling. I've been graciously invited to deliver remarks for a Transgender Day of Remembrance event on Long Island.

This will be the third speech I've given at a TDOR event and as of yet haven't been invited to give one back home or in the birth state (hint, hint).

But when I do get those opportunities, one of the things I take into account when I'm compiling these speeches is why we're gathered there in the first place.

The Byrd-Shepard Hate Crimes bill will have been on the books for a few weeks by the time I stand up at the podium to deliver this next speech, but our work toward achieving full equality for transgender Americans will not be complete.

That sadly will be an ongoing but necessary project.

Looking forward to seeing you folks in Long Island on November 22.

Countdown To Bryn Mawr and TDOR Speeches

I'm writing and rewriting my speech, updating a Power Point presentation, packing, getting divafied and eagerly anticipating my upcoming trip to the Philadelphia metro area and the Bryn Mawr College campus.

I'm heading there to do a 4 PM speech in the M. Carey Thomas Library's Room 224 on Tuesday October 20.

These trips never get old for me because I've always liked public speaking, traveling to different areas of the country and I enjoy doing these events.

It also gives me another opportunity to pick up another college coffee mug and a sweatshirt.

I was blessed last year to speak at CU-Boulder for a gender conference they held on their beautiful campus in the shadow of the Flatiron Mountains. I've already been on the U of L campus this academic year, and I'm looking forward to another trip that I'll be taking in March to SUNY-Oneonta.

I have an upcoming trip next month I'm taking to Long Island in which I'll be the keynote speaker for a November 22 TDOR event being hosted at the UCC Church in Centerport, NY.

Just like the Bryn Mawr and any speaking event I participate in, I want to be on my 'A' speaking game. It's just something about being on a college campus around our future leaders that energizes me.

Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of long time African descended trans activists getting these speaking opportunities at college campuses. Some of that you can attribute to many of us not being as public.

Some of us are doing work locally that doesn't give them a high enough national profile so that academia will seek us out and include our perspectives in these gender conferences and speeches that occur on these campuses.

I'm cognizant of that fact and consider it an honor when they choose me. It's a major reason why I want to give 150% effort in putting together an event that's not only informative but enjoyable as well. I'm keenly aware that I'm not just representing myself, I represent an entire community. I want to make it easier for the next African descended transperson to get that same opportunity I was blessed to get.

I'm also hoping that one day, I and my African descended trans brothers and sisters will begin to get opportunities and invitations to do these speeches and participate in gender conferences on HBCU campuses.

As for the upcoming LI TDOR event, this particular one has had some previous speakers that are a Who's Who of the trans community such as Diego Sanchez, Pauline Park, and Melissa Sklarz.

They are people that I respect and admire, so yeah, I'm honored that this group wanted me to speak at their event.

So if you want me peeps for 2010, start early with your requests.

I had the honor in 2002 and 2003 of speaking at my local TDOR sponsored by the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. I was even more thrilled by the fact the 2002 one was their first annual one.

Time to wrap this post up and get back to work polishing the speech.

For those of you in Philly or on the Bryn Mawr campus, looking forward to seeing you on Tuesday.

Ethan Needs 2009 TDOR Info

The 11th Annual Transgender Day Of Remembrance will take place on November 20.

Ethan St. Pierre, who now compiles the stats and coordinates the information for the TDOR is asking for your help.

If you are hosting or having a TDOR event on your campus or in your city, please send him the information about your event so that he can update the TDOR website.

You can send your TDOR event information to Ethan at Radicalguy@gmail.com

These are the people we will memorialize for this year's TDOR. Bear in mind that the list could unfortunately grow before the cutoff date.

Does The Transgender Porn World Celebrate The TDOR?

TransGriot Note: Transgender adult actress Vaniity at an event in Las Vegas.

In the wake of my commentary last week calling for HRC to leave our TDOR alone, one of the comments that was posted to it came for a person calling themselves Eddy.

I agree! Very well-written post, as usual. I wonder if trans porn industry observes this day. Does anyone know?

As the USS Monica went to Defcon 2 alert status and spooled up her rhetorical Tomahawks in preparation for launch, my thoughts ranged from immediately deleting the comment to rhetorically blasting it to smithereens.

My initial anger over the comment was fueled by the fact that once again, the negative perception of transgender peeps had wormed its way into a day that was meant for us to remember our fallen sisters.

But with my finger ready to hit DELETE, I stepped away from my pissivity over Eddy's comments to ponder why he felt comfortable enough to ask it on this blog in the first place.

One of the things that I and other transpeople of color have long complained about is the lack of balance with our images as transwomen. The adult entertainment world has played a major part in that combined with lack of positive role models of transwomen of color due to stealth status and other reasons to counteract it.

And far too often in the adult entertainment industry the images of African-American, Latina, and Asian transwomen are the ones disproportionately pushed and advertised to the point whee it negatively affects even the positive things we try to do.

Since some peeps make tons of money off pre-op transgender images with their adult films, magazines and various websites, and transgender people of color are the ones disproportionately bearing the brunt of the anti-transgender violence, when you ask Eddy's question in that context, somehow it doesn't seem as insulting as it did at first knee-jerk glance.

So did shemalewhatever.com and its like minded cousins black out their website for the day?

Did they stop filming the latest epic adult transgender film for release?

Did they cancel that trip to Thailand or Brazil looking for poor or young transpeople to take pictures of?

Did any of the adult transgender stars or the young transwomen participating in the destruction of our images show up at the TDOR events in West Hollywood, New York or elsewhere?

Did they even stop to care?

Come to think of it, Eddy's question is one that we all deserves an answer to.

Leave The TDOR Alone

As TDOR 2008 recedes into the rear view mirror of history I wish to comment on the efforts of some people in the transgender community to turn the Transgender Day of Remembrance ceremony into a happy-happy joy-joy event.

Leave the TDOR alone.

There are 365 days in a year (366 during leap years), which is probably why our presidential election campaigns seem so endless.

If you wish to have an event that takes a happy-happy joy-joy approach to publicizing transgender issues, by all means organize it and promote the hell out of it. If it's a good one and has no connection whatsoever to the Homosexual Rights Corporation, I'll even post whatever press release you put together for this event on TransGriot.

Just pick some other calendar date to do it.

Just as Memorial Day and Veterans Day are two calendar days specifically set aside to memorialize veterans and anyone who has paid the ultimate price for us to have what freedoms we do enjoy here in the States, we transgender peeps need that same kind of day to memorialize the people we've lost as well.

The TDOR is a memorial service and as such is a serious, contemplative event. The core element of it is the reading of the names and lighting of candles for the dearly departed.

The TDOR in addition to us ensuring the names of our fallen brothers and sisters don't fade from our memories with the passage of time, is also a way for us to initiate teachable moments with our allies, do coalition building, talk to the general public about our issues, and sometimes get the bonus of media coverage as well.

The TDOR is also important to transgender people of color as well. We get precious little media coverage and people of color make up the disproportionate share of the 412 people (and counting) memorialized on the Remembering Our Dead site.

As a matter of fact, since the other thing we African American transgender peeps share with our non-transgender brothers and sisters besides our heritage is a near invisibility in the media, there was a proposal a few years ago by some peeps in the African-American transgender community to have our own event.

It would be centered on the August 7 date of Tyra Hunter's death due to the ignorant negligence of an African-American EMT in Washington DC.

The proposed day's mission would be to publicize the fact that many of the anti-transgender murders of African-American transgender people are committed by our own people. It would also seek to do some 'ejumacation' of our community around those and other issues affecting us and point out that 60% of the ROD list is transpeople of color.

But when it was pointed out that Rita Hester's murder was the impetus that led to the TDOR, and that day was now being celebrated around the world, the chatter about a separate day, even though it's a wonderful idea that probably needs to happen, went dormant.

If my fellow transpeeps of African descent realize the importance of the world pausing to contemplate anti-transgender violence, then what's the problem with the cognitive abilities of those of you trying to mess with the TDOR's simplistic perfection for specious reasons?

I will go Maya Wilkes on you quislings if what I'm hearing about this effort to change the 'morbid and depressing' TDOR's is true and the unstated purpose is to grease the skids for HRC to resume raising funds in our community on the bones of our fallen brothers and sisters.

The 2008 Louisville TDOR Ceremony

Just arrived back home a little over an hour ago from the sixth annual local observance of the Transgender Day of Remembrance at the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

The mood was a little more somber than usual because one of our own was on the list. Nakhia's cousin Yana and twin sister Nicole were also some of the 40 people in attendance here along with our friends, LPTS students and allies.

After a welcome from LPTS Dean David Hester (no joke, peeps) the service began with remarks from Sienna (the local gender group) president Christina.

There was a prayer read before the reading of the names part of the ceremony commenced. As I silently read the list of names, many of them whose stories I've chronicled in this blog, I felt this feeling of sadness washing over me.

But what I was feeling probably paled in comparison to Yana and Nicole's reactions when their late relative's name was read aloud and the candle was lit for her.

We had a wonderful rendition of We Shall Overcome after the reading of the names performed by pianist Harry Pickens, an inspiring speech from Beth Harrison Prado, prayer and an additional song from Carol Kraemer.

Once the TDOR service concluded, we moved to the Winn Center for a reception and the announcement of the 2008 Butterfly Award winner.

It's a new award that the LPTS Women's Center began presenting last year to the person doing outstanding work in the local transgender community. Beth was surprised and pleased to learn that the award would be going home with her.

Beth in her short acceptance speech for the Butterfly Award hit the nail on the head about the purpose for the TDOR's.

While we mourn the people tragically taken away from us, it's also a celebration of the fact we are openly and truthfully living our lives as transgender people.

The ceremony reminds us that in any struggle in which oppressed minorities fight for their full citizenship rights, people will lose their lives along the way before the majority of them reach the promised land of equality.

We must keep fighting and pushing for that day while never forgetting the ones who paid the ultimate price for being their authentic selves.

The best way to encapsulate what I'm thinking and feeling right now is to close this with some words from Maya Angelou that were on the front of our TDOR program.

You may shoot me with your words
You may cut me with your eyes
You may kill me with your hatefulness
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Sleep well, my fallen brothers and sisters. You have risen to a better place. We who you left behind will continue the fight to make this a better world for us and future generations to live in.

Ten Years-400 Dead...And Counting

Today is the tenth anniversary of the Transgender Day of Remembrance. It's the day transgender people around the world pause and remember our fallen brothers and sisters along with our allies and friends.

It's also a day of mixed emotions for me. One of the people we'll be remembering this year is one of my friends.

Instead of lighting 30 candles on her birthday cake next month, instead we'll be lighting one candle for Nakhia 'Nikki' Williams at our 7 PM EST ceremony in the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary's Caldwell Chapel later tonight. She unfortunately is one of the 27 transpeople killed this year due to the senseless anti-transgender violence directed at us.


Since the night ten years ago that Rita Hester's lifeless body was found in her Boston area apartment and outrage over the disrespectful way the gay and straight news media covered it triggered the first TDOR ceremony in 1999, we have read the names of 412 people over the last ten years of TDOR ceremonies according to the Remembering Our Dead web project site.

The 412 names listed are disproportionately transgender people of color, encompasses 38 states, 130 US cities and several nations. It also includes non-transgender people such as Nashville's Willie Houston and Barry Winchell, who was killed by a fellow soldier because he was dating transwoman Calpernia Addams.

This year's ceremony is a mixed bag of emotions for me. I'm angry about the continued loss of valuable lives. I'm saddened by the fact that one of my friends is on the list this year. I'm shocked but not surprised after reading the stats that we lost so many people this year.

But at the same time, I'm hopeful that with the increased media coverage of transgender people over the last year and a half combined with the upcoming change in presidential administration, we finally have the conditions in place to pass hate crimes and an inclusive ENDA.

They may be just laws to some of you, but for the transgender community they are literally life and death issues. They are symbols that we matter, our lives are respected and valued and when you read the 'We The People' in the Constitution's preamble, that includes transgender Americans as well. .

The TDOR also ensures that how and why our fellow transpeople died never fades from our memories.


crossposted to The Bilerico Project

Once Again HRC-Keep Your Moneygrubbing Mitts Off Our TDOR

I've been advised that the Homosexual Rights Corporation is sponsoring TDOR events in Columbus and Cincinnati, OH.

Those events are supposed to be FUBU productions for us to memorialize our dead with our allies.

While there's some concern in the Dallas-Fort Worth transgender community about HRC's local Federal Club chapter sponsoring an event on the same night and time as the TDOR observances in Dallas and Fort Worth that have been publicized for weeks, let's get real for a minute.

The people who attend that event aren't likely to have compassion for our community, so don't sweat it. Handle your business and honor our people with class and dignity. You'll also know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the peeps who do show up for the DFW events are allies and friends who truly care about the community, not backstabbing sellouts.

If you feel they deliberately targeted the TDOR, then protest their next Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex area events and their dinner.

HRC cannot, in any spin driven hallucinogenic stretch of the word consider themselves to be an ally to the transgender community. Don't think we forgot about HRC selling transgender people out last year and being the lone holdout in the United ENDA coalition.

Those of us who are paying attention know y'all ain't changed one bit. That's why your dinners are still being protested.

Until HRC becomes a true ally to this community and joins the mainstream of the GLBT community in working together to pass a transgender-inclusive ENDA, y'all need to keep your grubby paws off the TDOR events.

Here's what I said about it last year and it bears repeating and rereading, especially by you transgender peeps who are continually sipping the 'HRC is our friends' Kool-aid.

TDOR 2008 Names List

Courtesy of Ethan St. Pierre, as of November 16, the list of people being memorialized for the 10th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance on Thursday.


Kellie Telesford
Location: Thornton Heath, UK
Cause of Death: Strangled
Date of Death: November 21, 2007
Kellie was strangled to death with a scarf, by 18 year old Shanniel Hyatt, who then covered the body of 39-year-old Kellie Telesford with a white blanket - with the brown furry scarf used to choke her still bound tightly round her neck. Hyatt said he killer her after discovering she had a penis.


Brian McGlothin (Liked to dress in Women's clothes)
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Cause of Death: Shot in the head with an automatic rifle by Antonio Williams who is serving a six year sentence. Brian was 25 years old.
Date of Death: December 23, 2007



Gabriela Alejandra Albornoz
Location: Santiago, Chile
Cause of Death: Attacked and stabbed
Date of Death: December 28, 2007

Patrick Murphy (Found Dressed in Women's clothes)
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Cause of Death: Shot Several times in the head
Date of Death: January 8, 2008
Patrick was 39 years old.

Stacy Brown
Location: Baltimore, MD
Cause of Death: Shot in the head
Date of Death: January 8, 2008
Stacy was 30 years old.


Adolphus Simmons
Location: Charleston, SC
Cause of Death: Shot to Death (Aldophus was 18 yrs. old)
Date of Death: January 21, 2008


Fedra (a known transvestite)
Location: Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
Cause of Death: Was found lying face up in a pool of blood,
cause of death was not reported.
Date of Death: January 22, 2008


Ashley Sweeney
Location: Detroit, Michigan
Cause of Death: Shot in the head
Date of Death: February 4, 2008
The age of Ashley Sweeney is unknown, she was only described as a young transgender woman in a press release.


Sanesha (Talib) Stewart
Location: Bronx, NY
Cause of Death: Stabbed to Death
Date of Death: February 10, 2008
Sanesha was 25 years old.


Lawrence King
Location: Oxnard, California
Cause of Death: Shot to death by a classmate because he liked to wear
women's clothes. (Lawrence King was 15 years old).
Date of Death: February 12, 2008


Simmie Williams Jr.
Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Cause of Death: Shot to death, Simmie was found wearing women's clothing. (Simmie was 17 years old)
Date of Death: February 22, 2008


Luna (no last name reported)
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Cause of Death: Brutally beaten to death and tossed into a dumpster.
Date of Death: March 15, 2008


Lloyd Nixon
Location: West Palm Beach, Florida
Cause of Death:Repeatedly beat in the head with a brick.
Date of Death: April 16, 2008
Lloyd was 45 years old.


Felicia Melton-Smyth
Location: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Cause of Death: brutally stabbed to death by Francisco Javier Hollos, who said he killed her because she would not pay for sex. Felicia was an HIV activist on vacation from Wisconsin.
Date of Death: May 26, 2008


Silvana Berisha
Location: Hamburg, Germany
Cause of Death: Stabbed to Death
Date of Death: June 24, 2008


Ebony (Rodney) Whitaker
Location: Memphis, Tennessee
Cause of Death:Shot (Ebony was 20 yrs. old)
Date of Death:July 1, 2008


Rosa Pazos
Location: Sevilla, Spain
Cause of Death: Was found in her apartment, she had been stabbed in the throat.
Date of Death: July 11, 2008


Juan Carlos Aucalle Coronel
Location: Lombardi, Italy
Cause of Death severely beaten causing fractures to the head and face before being run over by a car.
Date of Death July 14, 2008
Juan Carlos was 35 years old.


Angie Zapata
Location: Greeley, Colorado
Cause of Death: She was found in her home with two severe fractures in her skull.
Angie was murdered by 31 year old, Alan Ray Andrade. Angie was 18 years old.
Date of Death: July 17, 2008


Jaylynn L. Namauu
Location: Makiki Honolulu, Hawaii
Cause of Death: Stabbed to Death
Date of Death: July 17, 2008
Jaylynn was 35 years old.


Samantha Rangel Brandau
Location: Milan, Italy
Cause of Death: beaten, gang raped and stabbed numerous times before being left for dead.
Date of Death: July 29, 2008
Samantha was 30 years old.



Ruby Molina
Location: Sacramento, California
Cause of Death: Drowned
Date of Death: September 21, 2008
Ruby's naked body was found floating in the American river.
She was 22 years old.


Aimee Wilcoxson
Location: Aurora, Colorado
Cause of Death: undetermined (Police have yet to reveal cause)
Date of Death: November 3, 2008
Aimee was found dead in her bed. She was 34 years old.



Duanna Johnson
Location: Memphis, Tennessee
Cause of Death: Shot
Date of Death: November 9, 2008
Duanna was found dead in the middle of the street. She was 42 years old.


Dilek Ince
Location: Ankara, Turkey
Cause of Death:Shot in the back of the head
Date of Death: November 11, 2008


Teish (Moses) Cannon
Location: Syracuse, New York
Cause of Death: Shot
Date of Death: November 14, 2008
Teish was 22 years old.



Ali
Location:Iraq
Cause of Death:executed for being transgender
Date of Death:2008, Month is Unknown
Video of Ali before she was executed: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2tDVtjQNfQ


*IMPORTANT NOTE FROM ETHAN - (In case I don't get the details posted in time) There were 2 other Iraqi transgender women who were executed at the same time as Ali. Please remember them at your TDoR event.


TransGriot Note: For further info you can contact Ethan at radicalguy@gmail.com

2008 Louisville TDOR Events

The 10th Anniversary of the Transgender Day Of Remembrance is rapidly approaching, and once again our sponsor for the local TDOR events held at the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary will be the Women's Center at LPTS and More Light.

For the second time since the local events began to be hosted by the LPTS in 2002, there will be a heightened level of sadness for us in Da Ville this year. One of the names we'll read will be one of our own, Nakhia Williams.

The week of events leading up to the November 20 service will kick off tomorrow with a Transgender 101 Workshop from 12:30-1;30 PM in the Winn Center's McAtee Dining Room.

On November 19 there will be a 6:30 PM screening of the film Soldier's Girl followed by a discussion at the Caldwell Chapel's Fellowship Hall. Doors open at 6 PM for that event.

On November 20 there will be another panel discussion from 12:30-1:30 PM on Transgender Experience of Faith Communities in the Winn Center's McAtee Dining Rooms with the Memorial Service happening at 7:00 PM in the Caldwell Chapel.

As part of the service we have someone from the local transgender community as the featured speaker, and this year it will be Beth Harrison-Prado. (Just as an FYI, I was given that honor in 2002-2003)

Following the service will be a reception and the presentation of the 2008 Butterfly Award, which honors a person whose done outstanding service for the transgender community.

As of yet haven't heard if the GLBT group on the University of Louisville campus is planning anything for the TDOR, but if they are I'll post it to the blog.

For further info on the 2008 TDOR events at the LPTS, click on this link to the Wimminwise Blog. Hope to see you peeps there.

Fallen Sisters

As a blogger whose emphasis is focusing on the issues of transgender people of African descent, sometimes my fellow transgender bloggers will send me interesting stuff they run across.

Marti Abernathey sent me this link yesterday afternoon to a new post on her Transadvocate blog.

The accompanying YouTube video that goes with it is of an early 1990's appearance of African-American transgender twins on the Jenny Jones show.



The twins in this clip were none other than Chanelle and Gabrielle Pickett.

If that name sound familiar to you, it should. It's the same Chanelle Pickett who was brutally murdered in Boston back in November 1995 by William Palmer and only got a two year probated sentence for it.

I've been concerned for some time about Gabrielle Pickett. I don't know if she's still alive or how she's doing, but I'd definitely like to know along with the peeps in Transsistahs-Transbrothas. If anyone has any information in that regard or is in regular contact with her, please have her contact me.

We don't (and shouldn't) have to wait until November to remember our fallen sisters that were tragically taken from us. It should be something we do on a regular basis.

Remembering our Dead

TransGriot Note: Ethan's aunt, Debra Forte is on the Remembering our Dead list.


by Ethan St Pierre
from the Bilerico Project
November 21, 2007

There are many things in my activist life that I am passionate about and I often wear my heart on my sleeve when it comes to the people in our community and the way we are often treated by society at large and our own Government. During the impassioned speech delivered by Barney Frank on the House floor during the ENDA debate, Frank was right about one thing: it is personal. I must admit that while being removed from ENDA was like a punch in the stomach, nothing can compare to the impact the Remembering Our Dead web project and the Transgender Day of Remembrance has had on me.


Prior to 2002, I had visited the Remembering Our Dead website while searching for specific information but it wasn't until 2002 that former NTAC Chair, Vanessa Edwards Foster recruited me to work on a project with her, which entailed going through the whole website and reading the details of each and every horrible murder. The impact brought me to my knees and yet it didn't end there. Each year I add more than a dozen names to the statistics, all lost to unspeakable acts of violence, all of whom had families, friends and lovers.

My aunt, Debra Forte was a transsexual woman who was murdered in my home town of Haverhill, Massachusetts, on May 15, 1995. Since her murder there have been 155 others in this Country alone. That's 155 families who suffer the grief of knowing their loved one was taken from them for no other good reason than the fact that they were, or perceived to be transgender.

Every year when I attend a transgender day of Remembrance and I am surrounded by my community, surrounded by the people I love, I truly feel the power of their support and the commitment to not tolerate violence committed against us as a consequence for being who we are. Please attend a Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Remember those we have lost and comfort those who are still alive.

Chanelle Pickett

In November 1995, Chanelle Pickett, an African-American transsexual woman, was strangled to death at age 23. At her service, Chanelle's twin sister, Gabrielle, also a transsexual woman, remembered her as a vibrant person, "full of life... high-spirited... with many goals."

Chanelle Pickett's murder illustrates why we fought so hard to stay in ENDA. When we say having gender identity language as part of ENDA is a life or death situation, we ain't kidding. Chanelle's murder graphically illustrates the connections between violence and pervasive employment discrimination.

This tragic story begins in 1994, the year prior to Chanelle's murder. The sisters and New York natives were both working steadily at NYNEX in Brookline, MA, (now Verizon's Northeast Bureau) until they were outed in November 2004 as transsexuals. The outing made both of them targets for harassment.

Chanelle sought help from a supervisor for relief but was ignored. She transferred to a different department, but the harassment continued openly and unabated until she and Gabrielle were terminated six weeks later in February 2005 because she got fed up and started standing up to co-workers who subjected her and her sister to gender harassment.

Stunned, unable to find work, feeling hopeless and desperate, having exhausted their options for legitimate employment elsewhere, and free falling toward a desperate poverty, Chanelle finally turned to the risky and dangerous last resort for young and beautiful transwomen trying to survive: Prostitution.

All because she and her twin sister were harassed out of a good job.

Then came the fateful meeting at Playland with William Palmer, a 34 year old computer programmer. Prior to that November 20 night, according to Newsweekly, Chanelle told Natoyear Sherarrion, her friend of eight years, that she had been having nightmares that someone was going to hurt her. They were similar to the fears that another transmurder victim, Amanda Milan would express five years later.

Playland, which opened in 1937 was one of Boston's original gay bars. Until it closed in 1998 it was located in the Combat Zone on Essex Street and had evolved to include a multicultural crowd. While William Palmer tried to deny that he knew Chanelle was transsexual, or that he enjoys the company of transsexuals, he's as familiar to the Boston transgender community that frequented the bar as Norm from Cheers was. He not only knew what and who a transsexual was, he frequently dated them.

Chanelle and Palmer had been seeing each other for some time and they had met at Playland on a number of occasions. Friends say that she really liked Palmer and wanted to have a more serious relationship with him. Palmer had written a letter to Chanelle not only expressing his affection for her, but had promised to help her get back on her feet and to take care of her.

On this particular night Chanelle, Gabrielle and Palmer went to the twins Chelsea area apartment first after leaving Playland and spent 90 minutes trying to convince them to have a three way with him. For some reason Chanelle agreed to go with Palmer to his home in Watertown, MA where he strangled her to death in the early morning hours on November 20. Palmer slept for six hours with Chanelle's dead body lying beside his bed before he turned himself in to a lawyer who informed the police.

According to the coroner, Chanelle's body was found with "bruised face and lips," and her "brain was badly swollen, the neck muscles were bruised, and there was hemorrhaging in the eyes."

With this overwhelming evidence, the letters to Chanelle and being seen in the company of her and other transwomen prior to the murder, Palmer's defense attorney came up with a then new variation of the 'homosexual panic' defense. He claimed that he'd never met Pickett until the night of the murder and because she didn't reveal her transgender status to him, he was overcome with such an uncontrollable rage that he killed her.

In other words, what he was arguing was that his attraction to Chanelle, and Chanelle's very existence as another human being on this planet, upset his white-collar sensibilities to the point where her death was both justifiable and necessary.

Psychologists, the denizens of the Playland, who corroborated the fact that Palmer was their version of Norm from 'Cheers' and the evidence debunked that, but the defense is designed to stir up whatever anti-GLBT feelings are in the juror's minds. In addition to that race reared its ugly head in this trial.

Palmer was portrayed in the Boston media as an average white-collar guy who was an upstanding member of his community. On the other hand, they saddled Chanelle with all the negativity directed at African-American transwomen. They never once pointed out her side of the story or thought of her as a human being who was a valued member of society.

One Boston Herald front-page story at the time described Palmer as a polite, clean-cut preppy. The article went on to describe the murder sympathetically as the only natural reaction any self-respecting, red-blooded, heterosexual man would have.

Despite the strong physical evidence against Palmer, unbelievably the 'trans panic defense worked and he was found not guilty of murder in April 1997. Palmer was convicted only of assault and battery. He received 2 years of jail time, a longer sentence than the prosecutor had requested, with Judge Robert A. Barton acknowledging the particularly "vicious" nature of the killing.

On the heels of the May 15 Deborah Forte strangulation killing and what happened to Tyra Hunter only three months later in August 1995, the verdict outraged the Boston and national transgender communities. Prior to the sentencing a month later, about 45 demonstrators gathered outside the courthouse and handed out leaflets that read "Jury Upholds Death Penalty for Transexualism" and carrying signs with pictures of Chanelle and saying "Justice: A Rich White Man's Game" and "End Violence Against Transgenders". The judge requested a copy of the flyer by courier, and was accommodated by the activists on the scene.

The judge sentenced Palmer in May 1997 to 2 years incarceration (2 1/2 years with 6 months suspended) and 5 years probation. In delivering the sentence, Judge Barton commented bitterly to the defendant "Mr. Palmer should kiss the ground the defense counsel walks on." Judge Barton also cited the gruesome pictures of the victim which, by his own ruling, the jury did not see, leading some observers to speculate that the judge had made an error in not allowing the jury to see the photographs.

Gabrielle Pickett gave moving testimony to the judge, saying "it's hell being transsexual", and "Chanelle wasn't just a sister, she was my best friend. We grew up together, took hormones together, transitioned together..."

While William Palmer successfully avoided contact with the press, outside the Middlesex County Courthouse, Gabrielle declared to reporters, "This isn't the end of it. I will continue to work to end violence against transgender people." She later told reporters outside the courtroom "There was some satisfaction in the sentence, but it doesn't make up for the fact that the verdict was only assault and battery."

Then GenderTalk radio host and activist Nancy Nangeroni told the reporters gathered outside the courtroom, "The judge, by this sentence, has made an unmistakable statement about the injustice of the verdict."

It's a theme that we have seen far too many times in this community. The discrimination that transgender people face leading to loss of employment that exponentially amplifies their vulnerability to violent crime.

Chanelle's sudden fall from life with a steady job and a bright future into poverty, desperation, and violent victimhood is a shocking story that is faced by far too many transpeople, and especially too many transwomen of color. The ever growing Remembering our Dead list and the TDOR's have depressingly pointed out this fact over the years.

Sherarrion sums it up in her comments to a Newsweekly reporter when she said, "She was a good, sweet, loving person. She didn't get her chance to shine. God didn't take my Chanelle, he [Palmer] did...and he won't get the punishment he deserves."

TDOR..My Thoughts

Today's TDOR is 48 hours away from Thanksgiving Day. Short of having good friends, some family members in my life, a good job, a roof over my head, food to eat and relatively good health I don't feel like there's much to be thankful for.

We've been 'gayjacked' out of an ENDA bill that our community desperately needs and told because we fought tooth and nail to stay in it, we're going to get frozen out of federal civil rights legislation until 2013. We also paid $20K of hard earned T-bills for the privilege of getting screwed by HRC, and we already have some elements of the transgender community with short memories trying to say that we need to work with an organization that repeatedly screws us. Here in Louisville the JCPS is prepared to go forward with protections for GLB workers, but not transgender ones as the Forces of Intolerance gear up their faith based hatred and lies to stop it.

The weather here in Da Ville is warm and sunny, but it doesn't match my mood at all on this day. I know I shouldn't be letting this depress me, but it does because I care. I look at the pictures of Riley, Jazz, Rochelle, Kim and all those other transkids now in elementary, middle or high school and wonder if they will still be facing the same bull we are dealing with ten, twenty-five or fifty years into this century.

On this TDOR we're adding another dozen names to the ever growing list of people killed by anti-transgender violence. I think about the night I almost joined that list back in 1996.

I think about all the drama that has transpired over the last two months and how it's going to indirectly fuel the negative perceptions that will lead to more deaths of transgender people for the remainder of the year and into 2008 as well.

I think about the ignorance being spouted about transgender people from folks in my own community. People who should know better than anyone what it's like to be reviled for who you are and have compassion for this situation. It also saddens me to know that 70% of the people on this list are people of color as well.

But as Dr. King so eloquently stated, while we must accept finite disappointment, we must never give up infinite hope.

Those are the words that I hold on to along with my unshakeable faith that this situation will turn around in my lifetime. I believe that the day will comme in which we transgender people are seen as God's children and valued human beings, not the punchline to a joke or targets of irrational violence and faith-based hatred.

I pray that we will be able to unleash our spirituality, creativity, work ethics, pride in who we are and competitive drive to make better lives not only for ourselves, but uplift this society as well.

I also want to see the day that killing a transgender person is not seen as socially acceptable behavior and the person who does so gets the same level of punishment as someone who kills a non-transgender person.

I also hold out hope that one day the TDOR ceremonies won't be needed. But alas, I fully expect that we'll be doing this again at the LPTS and other locales around the world next year.

And Now, A Word From An Ally

TransGriot Note: I mentioned on a previous post that the LPTS Women's Center is the host of our TDOR ceremonies in Louisville and we have a five year relationship with them. This is what they had to say about why they sponsor the TDOR from their Wimminwise blog.


Ten Reasons the Women’s Center Observes the Transgender Day of Remembrance
by Ha Qohelet

One friend of mine in particular has been challenging me to say why the Women’s Center spends any of its clearly finite time and energy on organizing an observance of the Transgender Day of Remembrance. That question no doubt deserves some extended reflection and comment. Here, however, are some preliminary thoughts:

Because this year some people died too soon, because someone hated them to death because of their gender, or how they lived it.

Because transgender people are real people, created in the image of God, and because every person’s life is unique and precious to God, and because anti-transgender murder denies both those things.

Because the killers of transgender people often go to great lengths to obliterate the memory of these people, so preserving that memory is an act of solidarity and resistance.

Because we affirm that no one’s life is disposable or not worth mourning and honoring.

Because whether or not we are transgender ourselves, transgender people are our neighbors, relatives, friends, colleagues, students, teachers, parishioners, pastors - that is, valued and valuable members of our world.

Because the “gender” in transgender concerns everyone; gender issues are women’s issues.

Because we are working for a world in which no one becomes the victim of deadly violence for refusing to conform to someone’s expectation of what is proper for a man or a woman.

Because difference is not defect; because the idea that there is a right and a wrong way to have or live gender, and that the current norm is that right way, is a mistake.

Because it is not yet totally obvious enough to everyone why the Women’s Center supports the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Because we are working for a time when the reasons the Women’s Center would support the Transgender Day of Remembrance are obvious, but the observance itself is no longer necessary - because people no longer die from anti-transgender violence.

In Memory of Rita Hester

by Nancy R. Nangeroni
from Gendertalk.com

Skating late last night
I retraced the vigil path
Found two candles burning on Rita's step
So I added one more
and wondered how it felt
to feel the knife strike so close to home.
They called her a man
Called her a transvestite
They said she lived a double life
But we know better
We know the truth
We know why Rita died.

I still hear your mama's cries
Haunting the canyons of my mind
You were just too much girl
For somebody else's world

I gazed into the windows
of the bar where you were last seen
I searched each patron's eyes for signs of guilt
I heard again your mama cry
"Who took away my child?"
echoing off canyon walls of brick and steel

I still hear your mama's cries
Haunting the canyons of my mind
You were just too much girl
For somebody else's world

I still hear your mama's cries
Haunting the canyons of my mind
You were just too much girl
For somebody else's world

Rita's Story

Some of you may be wondering why and how the TDOR which is happening in venues all over the world today got started. To know the present situation, we're going to go back to the past, specifically November 1998.

The Boston transgender community had already been reeling over the brutal deaths of three other local trans women, 23 year old Chanelle Pickett in November 1995, Deborah Forte (the aunt of TDOR co-coordinator and radio podcast host Ethan St. Pierre) in May 1995 and the September 11, 1998 one of Monique Thomas.

On or about that date 35 year old Monique was tied up in her apartment, robbed, stabbed multiple times to death and found a week later. Chanelle Pickett had been picked up at Jacques and was later killed by William Palmer, who got a 2 year suspended jail sentence for assault and battery when his lawyer used what is now called the 'trans panic defense'. In May 1995 Deborah Forte was brutally murdered in Haverhill, MA about the same time the Brandon Teena case was unfolding. Rita was the fourth Boston area transwoman killed in four years.

Rita was an out African-American transwoman who lived in the Allston/Brighton community west of Boston. She was a fun loving, gregarious woman comfortable with herself and was well loved by many people in the various worlds she interacted in.

Everywhere Rita went, people saw her as an incredibly vivacious, outgoing woman. She was was comfortable visiting Jacques, the local transgender bar as well as the local straight bars. She'd been making her living performing overseas, and it was something she thoroughly enjoyed. She had just returned from one of those trips in time to attend Thanksgiving dinner with her family.

Eyewitness reports variously claim that she went home with one or two people after meeting them at Jacques on the prior Tuesday, behavior that struck them as not typical of her style. The only suggestion that seems plausible is that she was murdered by people that she knew.

Since she was a 6’2″to 6’3″225 to 230 pound woman according to friends and known to them as a “large woman who could take care of herself,” it seems unlikely that she could have been murdered by someone breaking into her home, a fact which makes her murder only more puzzling.

On Saturday, November 28, 1998, at or around 6:20 PM, a neighbor reported to police a disturbance at Rita’s apartment. Upon arrival, they found her in cardiac arrest, having been stabbed multiple times. She was rushed to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital but was unfortunately declared dead after her arrival.

But what enraged the Boston transgender community was the disrespectful misrepresentation by the local press as 'he, male,' and putting her name in quotation marks. If a transgender individual lives for ten years as a woman, has acquired the physical characteristics of one and is known by all as Rita, she is not "Rita".

As Joan Touzet wrote at the time, "She's a woman, and whether or not you agree with her chosen lifestyle in any aspect, you owe her the respect to treat her as she wished to be treated."

The Boston Globe referred to Rita repeatedly as male while quoting her friends who correctly used female pronouns and her correct first name. Even Boston’s GLBT paper Bay Windows, one that should have been sensitive to us as a community ally, repeatedly used male pronouns and Rita’s old male name throughout their article.

In addition, the Bay Windows took it a step further and published wild rumors, stereotypes about African-American transwomen and improper references mischaracterizing her. Rumors abounded in the press at various times suggesting the potential involvement of everything from blackmail (hardly likely, given how out she was to friends, family and community) to Rohypnol (”Roofies,” or “the date-rape drug”), but nothing has been substantiated at this point. It was the first time that many people who knew Rita even had heard of her referred to in this way or heard about her transgender status.

Members of the Boston transgender and intersex communities vehemently protested the poor media coverage and its relentlessly derogatory, negative and insensitive tone. They called her a “gay man”, a “man who lived as a woman”, a “mystery to many”, and referred constantly to the victim as a male even though she'd lived as a woman for a decade and had never been known as one in Boston.


Despite a hurricane of criticism leveled at the papers, they defended their practice of using a name the victim’s close friends had never known her by.   Bay Windows drew heavy fire from the transgender community for its insensitive coverage -including pointed editorials and articles from rival In Newsweekly.

Two positive things came out of this tragedy despite the fact that Rita's killer has yet to be brought to justice. The candlelight vigil that was held on the one year anniversary of her death in San Francisco and Boston has morphed into a worldwide memorial service for all people killed by anti-transgender violence. The negative coverage was the catalyst for the Associated Press and several news gathering organizations to institute in 2001 stylebook changes that govern the coverage of transgender people in their news stories.

But the one thing that can't be changed is the fact that a beautiful trans woman's life was snuffed out by someone in 1998. The TDOR's ensure that we will never forget that.

Gwen Smith and the TDOR Story

photos-Gwen Smith, Nancy Nangeroni and Rita hester's mother Kathleen Hester at the 2001 Boston TDOR

Remembering The Past, Not Repeating It
Gwen Smith talks about Transgender Day of Remembrance

By D'Anne Witkowski
Originally printed November 20, 2003
Issue 1147 - Between The Lines News)

Gwen Smith never set out to be a transgender activist, but now she embraces the term. "I really take pride in being called a transgender activist because I'm trying to really create activism, create advocacy around the issue and around transgender issues," she said.

Smith is the founder of Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day that is observed worldwide in nearly 100 different locations to remember the large number of transgender people who are murdered every year as a result of anti-trans bias.

In 1993 Smith was an anonymous woman in an AOL chat room looking to discuss transgender issues with other people. Unfortunately, AOL's terms of service considered transgender issues to be vulgar, and shut down the various chats Smith and her acquaintances were having even though the chats were not explicit or obscene. "They were primarily people just looking for advice or even just people who all happen to be transgender that wanted to go into a room together and discuss politics or favorite music or whatever anyone was interested in at the time, and yet we were being shut down simply on the basis of us being transgender," she said.

Then, in 1994, a transgender woman who was a friend of Smith's committed suicide. "She took her life due to the amount of prejudice she had faced from her family, from locals in the area. She identified as lesbian and faced a lot from the local lesbian community," she said. "And it angered me to see this person who I thought was very strong, very bright, and very friendly be driven to such a state that she would actually take her life."

The combination of these two events spurred Smith to action. She and other AOL users fought with the company and eventually got the anti-trans policy changed. They took their cause to the media, she said, "just trying to draw awareness to what transgender is about and how we weren't vulgar." The group went on to form the Transgender Community Forum on AOL, which Smith operated from 1995 through 1999.

The Internet has proved to be an effective tool for Smith. She started the Remembering Our Dead web project (www.rememberingourdead.org), in response to the November 28, 1998 death of Rita Hester, a transgender woman in Boston. Three years earlier in November another transgender woman had also been killed in Boston. Rita Hester's death was like watching a nightmare repeat for Smith. "There was kind of this strange overlap of coincidences, unrelated cases, but still some similarities," she said. "I was angered to see a community that had forgotten those people we'd lost, and really let these people die without even noticing," she said. She was determined that the murders never be forgotten so that they did not keep repeating.

The first Transgender Day of Remembrance came about a year later, in November of 1999, the anniversary of Rita Hester's death. "We realized we had a lot of good information and we really needed to take it to a more public venue," she said. The event is held on November 20 instead of November 28 due to the Thanksgiving holiday.

Day of Remembrance and the Remembering Our Dead web project were the first large-scale projects devoted to anti-trans violence. "There really hadn't been anything like it before," she said. "There had been some small attempts by other transgender people to look at the issue but nothing had really been brought together."

The number of locations for Day of Remembrance has increased every year since its beginning. "This year (2003) thus far there's over 80 locations throughout the world. That's in six countries," she said. She fully anticipates 100 locations by November 20. While Michigan has three events planned (in Lansing, Ann Arbor, and Ferndale), "there are also going to be events on the same day in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Milan, Italy and all these places. It really is an international event and it's really a lot of people coming together," she said.

Smith hopes that the Day of Remembrance fosters a sense of community in addition to an opportunity for enlightenment for those who attend the events surrounding it. "For a lot of transgender people or gender variant people that might be attending I would hope that they get a sense of community, a sense of belonging to that community. To individuals who may not be gender variant I hope they get an understanding of the issues and the sort of violence transgender people can face simply for being who we are."

On the 20th she'll be in San Francisco, where she lives. "The San Francisco event is huge," she said. "Last year we had 1000 attendees." Although it's a logistical challenge, Smith finds putting the event together personally rewarding. "It's an attempt to try to make change."

Anti-trans violence appears to be escalating, and although the exact reason is not known, Smith has her theories. "I think that we live in a society that wants to view transgender people as disposable," she said. "We have a media that teaches people that transgender people are deceiving and should be treated accordingly. We have, in many places, a police force and judicial system that is not following up on these murders and is not providing sentences to fit these crimes therefore giving people the idea that they're not going to face prosecution for killing a transgender person."

Anti-trans violence is not far removed from anti-gay violence. "Most of the time, not always, when a crime is committed against an individual who is lesbian or gay it's not because they were, at the time, involved in kissing or other sort of contact with a member of their same sex. It's often because of gender cues or perceived gender cues. At the same time when a transgender person is assaulted and attacked, the number one term that a transgender person is called is not 'tranny' or 'sissy' or something like this, it's 'faggot' which is a derogatory term aimed primarily at gay males."

Though the people that make up the LGBT community are varied and diverse, Smith insists that a unified front is essential for combating hate. "The individuals that are out there that are doing these sorts of things, that are causing these injustices, they aren't looking at an individual saying, 'Well are they transgender, are they gay or are they lesbian, they're seeing a homogenous group. And it really helps us to present that face back."

She compared the issues facing the LGBT community to those facing the European Union. "If you look at the LGBT community in the same way you look at the struggles to get all the countries in Europe to work together as a unified whole you see the exact same thing. You see people don't want to lose their own self-identity in a larger label. And in both instances it's not about stripping away one's self-identity, it's about having a purpose and something larger than just that one identity."

Smith hopes that more than just transgender people will attend the Day of Remembrance events. "Everyone is a potential victim of this sort of violence," she said. "You don't even have to be transgender; you don't even have to be gay. You don't even have to be gender variant to face this sort of violence. It's violence that can affect anyone anywhere."

With awareness, Smith hopes, will come understanding. And understanding is a big detractor to violence. For those people who might otherwise harm a transgender individual either through words or violence, Smith hopes, "that they would think twice knowing what's happened out there and knowing what trans people are really like and what we face."

For Smith, Day of Remembrance is both political and personal. "On the site now, amongst those names, are three people who I knew personally who were killed. And I really would like to not have to put a fourth," she said. "I really want to see this change."

HRC, Keep Your Moneygrubbing Mitts Off Our TDOR

The TDOR is a time for us to memorialize the people we lost to anti-transgender violence. It's a event that's designed as a way for our allies to show support to our community.

In Louisville, the TDOR celebration has been organized by the wonderful people at the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. We will celebrate the 5th annual local observance tomorrow night at 7 PM in the Caldwell Chapel on the LPTS campus.

While we deeply appreciate our allies and can't thank you enough for the love, support and help that you have given us over the years, there's one group that in my opinion should NOT be welcome at any TDOR event this year and for the foreseeable future.

In the wake of their odious and morally bankrupt handling of ENDA (which will result in more transgender deaths until we have full civil rights) HRC is co-sponsoring TDOR memorials in Washington DC, Houston, Phoenix and Chicago.

They have revealed themselves to be the Antichrists of civil rights and have no respect for anything but cash, so why should we dishonor the memories of transpeople who died by having an organization that worked to pass a transgender-free ENDA, took $10K-20K of our money at SCC while saying they would oppose a non-inclusive ENDA and has spent a decade opposing our inclusion sign up as the sponsor of TDOR events?

Their opposition to our inclusion in ENDA is a contributing factor along with the anti-transgender hatred to some of the transpeople we memorialize at TDOR's being on that list in the first place.

So until HRC mends its ways, why should we give them the opportunity to keep perpetrating the 'illusion of inclusion' and claim in their fundraising efforts that they are transgender friendly? Their deeds not only speak loudly as to the type of organization they are, it speaks to their moral fiber as well.