…gathering on the steps of the Iowa state capitol in Des Moines
to commemorate the first Transgender Day of Remembrance in Iowa…

Iowa Transgender Day of Remembrance
20 November 2009
Pauline Park
Chair, New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA)

Today, we come together here on the steps of the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines to commemorate the very first Transgender Day of Remembrance in the history of the state of Iowa. And so I would like to thank all of those who came out tonight to take part in this historic occasion.

I would especially like to thank the two people who made this event possible: Sandy Vopalka, the executive director of Equality Iowa; and Jayden McCurnin, the  co-coordinator of Transformations Iowa, which meets at The Center here in Des Moines. Their leadership here in Iowa is an inspiration to people across the state as well as to me and to their colleagues in the Equality Federation — formerly, the Federation of Statewide LGBT Advocacy Organizations — of which Equality Iowa and NYAGRA (the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy) are member organizations.

I would also like to thank Gwen Smith, a transgender activist in San Francisco who originated the Transgender Day of Remembrance to mark the death of Rita Hester, a transgendered woman murdered in Boston on the 28th of November 1998. Gwen and a number of other transgender activists organized the very first TDOR on the 20th of February 1999, marching down Castro Street in San Francisco to demand an end to hate crimes against transgendered people.  Now, nearly eleven years later, the Transgender Day of Remembrance is observed in hundreds of cities and towns around the country  — from Albany to Atlanta, from Albuquerque to Anchorage, from Chicago to Seattle, from Boston to Billings, from Bloomington to Baton Rouge. And so when you stand here on the steps of the state capitol in Des Moines, you join a national movement calling for the end to hate crimes against people based on their gender identity or expression.

And TDORs are being held this week in Canada, from Halifax to Toronto to Vancouver.  In fact, this is a movement that has now gone global, with candlelight vigils and commemorations marking the Transgender Day of Remembrance around the world, from Milwaukee to Milan, and from Providence to Perugia; from Princeton to Perth; from Kalamazoo to Calgary, and from Coventry to Kuala Lumpur; from San Antonio to Sydney to Saskatoon, from Burlington to Brussels to Berlin, from Tacoma to Tulsa to Tel Aviv.

And so when you stand here on the steps of the state capitol in Des Moines, you participate in an international movement calling for the end to hate crimes against transgendered and gender-variant people. I come to you from New York, which unlike Iowa, has yet to enact a state discrimination law protecting people from discrimination based on gender identity or expression. On that score, the Hawkeye State is ahead of the Empire State. Iowa is also ahead of New York in enshrining marriage equality in state law, and I want to especially acknowledge the leadership of One Iowa and Equality Iowa in making that great victory possible.

But on this solemn occasion, our thoughts naturally turn to the daily struggle for survival that many transgendered people face across the country and around the world. I live in the Borough of Queens, and there have been three violent attacks on members of our community in the County of Queens just this year. First, there was the attack on Leslie Mora, a transgendered Latina woman assaulted as she was coming out of a gay bar in Jackson Heights only about 8 blocks from my apartment building. Then there was Carmella Etienne, a transgendered Afro-Caribbean woman who was born in Haiti, who was assaulted in St. Albans, the neighborhood in southeastern Queens where she lives. And then there was Jack Price, a gay white man who was attacked coming out of the corner store just a few blocks from his apartment; the beating he endured at the hands of two young men was so severe that there was initially some doubt as to whether he would survive. I’m happy to say that Leslie and Carmella are fully recovered and Jack is now on his way to a complete recovery. But all three continue to suffer the psychological wounds that come with such hate crimes.

Sadly enough, Lateisha Green did not survive her attack in upstate New York in November 1998. On November 14, just over a year ago, Lateisha, a transgendered African American woman, was with her gay brother and a transgendered friend of hers at a party in Syracuse, the city she was born and raised in. Leaving the party, the three were pulling out of the driveway when another partygoer came out of the house where the party was held, wielding a shotgun. Dwight DeLee wounded Lateisha’s brother, Mark, who is now thankfully recovered from his injuries. DeLee also shot Lateisha, who died only a few hours later in the hospital; she was only 22.

In August, Dwight DeLee was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison. But the conviction was for manslaughter, not murder. The only reason that Lateisha Green’s murderer was sentenced to 25 years for her murder was because the district attorney chose to prosecute the crime as a hate crime. But the New York state legislature actually passed the state’s hate crimes bill without gender identity or expression, because the New York State Hate Crimes Bill Coalition refused to support NYAGRA’s call for inclusion of gender identity and expression in the bill before its passage. The simple fact was that the leaders of the coalition — two gay white men — refused to support transgender inclusion in that legislation. And so in the very first prosecution of a transgender hate crime under New York state law, Dwight DeLee was prosecuted under the rubric of ‘actual or perceived sexual orientation.’

We’ve come a long way since 2000, and last month, President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law — the federal hate crimes bill that includes gender identity as well as sexual orientation.

But if law is an important and necessary tool of social change, it is a weak tool. Ultimately, it is a battle for the hearts and minds of our fellow human beings that we must wage – in conversations with family members, friends, colleagues, and neighbors, and fellow human beings as well as through events such as this one.

I’m happy to report that there are events being held this week to commemorate the Transgender Day of Remembrance over our northern border in Canada, from Halifax to Toronto to Vancouver.  In fact, this is an event that has now gone global, with candlelight vigils and commemorations marking the Transgender Day of Remembrance around the world, from Milwaukee to Milan, and from Providence to Perugia; from Princeton to Perth; from Kalamazoo to Calgary, and from Coventry to Kuala Lumpur; from Burlington to Brussels to Berlin, from San Antonio to Sydney to Saskatoon, from Tacoma to Tulsa to Tel Aviv.

Let us come together, then, as a global community of human beings committed to the protection of those most vulnerable to violence. Let us work toward that day when no one will have to fear discrimination, harassment, abuse or violence because of their gender identity or expression or for any other reason. Let us renew our commitment here and now to the paramount principle of non-violence and a national and a global order of justice for all.  Thank you.

The post Iowa Transgender Day of Remembrance 2009: Speech Text appeared first on Pauline Park.

It is important to point out that neither Cleve Jones nor David Mixner — the unelected, self-appointed leaders of their very own LGBT movement — consulted with a single state or local organization before putting themselves at the head of the parade, as it were; they are now asking (demanding, really) for support for this ill-conceived mess of a ‘march’ that at best will yield no positive results for the community.

It’s also important to point out that Jones & Mixner called this march before securing permits. Given the reputation of the Washington, D.C. police for police brutality, to send youth, seniors, transgendered people and people with disabilities to a non-permitted march and put them in a position of being vulnerable to arrest and imprisonment in my view was simply unethical — all the more so since Jones & Mixner have not been honest about the permit situation or its implications for vulnerable members of our community.

It’s also important to point out that there is no structure for financial accountability for the money being donated to this march, which is so reminiscent of the Millenium March; that event took place in 2000, but there has still been no accounting for the finances for that march a full nine years later. (The Millenium March board was actually investigated by the FBI for fraud, but no one — unfortunately — was prosecuted for it.) I’m going to go out on a limb and make a prediction here: we will never know how the donations now being solicited by Mixner & Jones were actually used, because they will never tell us.

It is an unusual experience for me to be in agreement with Barney Frank, but I have to agree with him on this: this ‘march’ will not accomplish anything positive for the LGBT community. It’s important to point out that no national LGBT march on Washington has ever moved legislation; the inclusive ENDA & federal hate crimes bills are already moving forward, and there are more effective ways of advancing legislation to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT).

What the march will do is divert scarce resources from those state and local organizations doing the real work of the movement just at a moment when they most need resources because of the recession. In fact, a lot of state and local organizations already have events planned for Oct 11 — which is National Coming Out Day — and so the scheduling of this march on that day will force many of those organizations to choose between continuing to organize events in their home communities or send members to Washington.

It is the height of arrogance for Jones & Mixner to claim that this march will help organize the community at the state and local level. In fact, there is already a strong infrastructure at the state level — the Equality Federation (formerly, the Federation of Statewide LGBT Advocacy Organizations). At the Equality Federation annual summer meeting in St. Louis earlier this month, representatives of statewide LGBT advocacy organizations from across the country held one meeting specifically to discuss Cleve Jones’ appeal to the Federation to endorse the march; while a few people spoke in favor, the overwhelming majority opposed the march and urged Toni Broaddus (the Federation’s executive director) to issue a statement distancing the Federation from it, which she did in an op-ed in the Washington Blade.

There are serious process issues with this march as well as substantive, stragetic and tactical issues, as indicated by Steve Ault in his op-ed for Gay City News. Steve was co-coordinator of the first National March on Washington for Lesbian & Gay Rights in 1979 (which I participated in), and co-chair of the second in 1987, and his analysis of the march should be carefully considered by anyone thinking about heading to Washington on Oct. 11. 

It is becoming increasingly apparent to me that this non-event will do little if anything to advance marriage equality, transgender rights or any of the other important elements of the LGBT movement’s agenda. If you do want to advance marriage equality, go to Maine. We have the chance to win full marriage rights at the ballot box for the first time in the history of the United States, but that will only come through work in Maine, not from an ill-timed and ill-conceived national march on Washington.

As an openly transgendered woman of color, I feel compelled to point out that the march was called and is being pushed by two gay white men with no consultation whatsoever with members of the community they claim to represent. A ‘march’ that purports to represent the entire LGBT community but whose organizers have excluded youth, women, transgendered and bisexual people and people of color from any significant decision-making role in the planning process is a march that lacks any legitimacy in claiming to represent me, and I cannot support it.

Do not be deceived by the propaganda coming from the head honchos: this ‘march’ is not a grassroots effort in any meaningful sense of the term; this is not a road trip, it’s an ego trip.

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