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I woke up this morning like every morning with a burning and insatiable desire to be seen. Thankfully, with Transgender Awareness Day and all that, it could finally meet that need.
In case you’re unfamiliar, annual vacations are meant to encourage trans people and affirm our existence. It was created in 2009 by Rachel Crandall-Crocker, CEO of Transgender Michigan, to “celebrate the living.” The community already had Transgender Remembrance Day, but November’s annual celebration of death and violence’s focus always left her feeling depressed and alienated.
And so we, the community, have developed a wide range of customs to celebrate this day.
I personally started my morning with a mantra: “I am seen. I am visible. I’m here to represent. ”I repeated this on my phone screen, its front camera reflecting my face back to me, while I was still lying in bed, wrapped in the pale pink weighted blanket I got free last summer at a Pride sponsorship with Local Linens, the national newspaper, bedding conglomerate that partnered with Amazon for an exclusive line of products.
My friend Xanthippe, a New York-based diversity and inclusion consultant who has been working with Amazon for the past two years to help them improve their facial recognition software so that it stops confusing trans and non-binary people, helped me to get that deal. I am very lucky to have the support of my community.
Getting out of bed, I slipped on my fluffy trans flag Ugg flip flops and walked over to my dresser, where I retrieved an oversized black T-shirt made by Macy Rodman, a musician here in Brooklyn, and a trans woman. If you were going to see me today, imagine it as me channeling Annette Bening on American Beauty, Will be seen today – it would be okay for me to use my platform, that is, myself, to promote my community members, right?
I walked to my window and drew the curtains. To my dismay, there was no one there. I turned on the lights to increase visibility, but it didn’t help. All the windows I saw across the street had their shades drawn and the shutters closed. If a trans woman is standing in her room and no one is around to see her, is she still valid? I didn’t want to stay to find out.
I buttoned up my boots and put on my new favorite mask, a cloth mask with a beaded portrait of Dr. Rachel Levine, the first openly trans federal official to be confirmed by the Senate, which was hand-embroidered here in Brooklyn by a trans ally. local. to seek the visibility I deserved in the cafeteria two blocks away.
It was early in the morning so there were very few people on the sidewalk, but I made sure to say good morning to everyone who passed by, although unfortunately many did not respond with the greeting. A staggering 84% of Americans say they don’t know a trans person personally, according to a statistic from the Human Rights Campaign from six years ago. I am legally bound to quote in everything I write about trans people, so it probably has something to do with it.
Thinking about such widespread ignorance depressed me for a moment, but then I remembered the words of abolitionist Mariame Kaba: “Let this radicalize you, instead of driving you to despair.” A smile appeared on my face. There was still work to be done.
Visibility is a tense issue for many within the trans community, which in itself is something very real and not a reductive myth of a fictional monolith perpetuated to facilitate individuals making universal and radical claims on behalf of the entire collective. “The visibility and recognition of trans women has exploded,” Alex V Green wrote for BuzzFeed two years ago, “but black and brown trans women are still dying. It doesn’t seem like a visibility policy can really save the most vulnerable among us. “
For the most vulnerable, visibility itself is a threat, acting as “surveillance networks,” as UC Berkeley assistant professor Eric A. Stanley put it in his introduction to Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex. 2011, punishing the most visible with violence, imprisonment, family rejection and other forms of marginalization.
Those are great points, but what about me, the first openly trans woman to order an iced latte at my neighborhood coffee shop this morning? Surely that is significant, brave, even. That kind of representation is so important… right?
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