If transphobia kills me, as it kills too many of my trans siblings, I want my friends to write my name on a brick and throw it through a window. I’ll leave it up to them as to which window they throw it through, but suspect it’ll be a political office or church window.
And right now, someone, somewhere, is reading this. And maybe that person is pissed. I’m advocating for the destruction of property.
If I die from transphobia, and my friends actually throw the brick, I’ll bet there is more outrage over the brick than my death.
I’m sure the person who threw the brick would be criticized, their actions challenged as inappropriate.
My death wouldn’t make that challenge. My death would just be another unfortunate, sad death of a trans woman. But it wouldn’t really get anyone’s attention. After all, trans people die all the time because of how this world treats us.
This is because politicians and religious leaders fuel the hatred that justifies transphobia. Their words, which have real impact, aren’t an outrage. The brick through the window is an outrage.
I wonder what this says about the value of windows versus the value of trans people?
And what if it wasn’t an outright transphobic murder, but an indirect effect of transphobia? What if I killed myself? What if a doctor gave me inferior medical treatment? What if I was homeless because nobody would hire a trans woman? Any of those things would be sad. But, in the eyes of many, it wouldn’t justify expressions of anger, of violence, even if the violence committed would be a broken window, done in response to the violence that left me dead.
Transphobia kills trans people every day. Some of us are murdered. We remember those lost siblings on the Transgender Day of Remembrance every November. Others see their mental health suffer until they can no longer find a reason for hope and take their own lives. Some seek relief through drugs or alcohol, substances that too often take away some of our shining lights. Other trans people are in situations at the intersection of poverty and race and gender identity that put them at increased risk of death — such as homelessness. Too many of us can’t access good medical care, whether it is EMTs that leave us for dead because they don’t want to render care, doctors who refuse to treat our cancer, fear of mistreatment by the medical system that keeps us from seeing the doctor when we should, or the high cost of medical care.
That is why I’m angry. And if it happens to me, I want someone to throw a brick.
But this transphobia doesn’t materialize out of thin air. People aren’t transphobic because they are don’t know anything about trans women. They are transphobic because they know about trans women. They know the lies about us. And it’s these lies that put us at risk.
When we are seen, we’re at risk.
People “know” we are immoral. They “know” we want to sexualize children. They “know” we try to trick men into dating us. They “know” we carry disease. They “know” we’re dangerously unstable. They “know” we aren’t really women, at least not in their eyes.
Of course, none of that is true. But transphobes do see us. They just don’t see us as we are.
Every time I walk out my front door, I ask myself, “Will today be the day someone sees me?” Will I be seen the way the anti-trans politicians speak of me? Will someone see that person who the preacher said wants to “destroy the foundations of society?” Will I be seen because someone spread lies and hate about me while washing his hands and saying, “I am innocent of this woman’s blood; see to it yourselves?”
“Will today be the day someone sees me?”
Will today be the day I’m seen? Will it influence that person to throw a bottle at my head? It wouldn’t be the first time — that happened two years ago. Fortunately, these wannabe baseball players were too drunk to have a good throw, or my name might have been projected on a screen one November day. Other trans people who never knew me might have lit a candle for me and rung a bell for me.
But I don’t want someone to ring a bell and light a candle for me. I want them to throw a brick for me.
Will today be the day I’m seen? Will some guy whistle at me as he whistles at other women, and, then, when he gets a bit closer, realize I’m trans? Will he see me then? Will he worry about whether his friends see? Will he want them to see he’s not gay, by taking all his male insecurities out on a trans woman walking to lunch?
Will today be the day I’m seen? Maybe I’ll be in the toilet, doing what I need to do. Maybe a dad will wait outside while his young daughter goes in to do what she needs to do. When I leave the bathroom and walk past him, will he see me? Will he see me as a preditor, as someone who wants to hurt his precious daughter, just as he heard the ministers and politicians warn him about when an equal rights bill was debated?
Will today be the day I’m seen? Will I have a medical emergency, and, if I do, will the staff look at me and see someone worth every attempt to save? Will they hesitate out of fear that trans people all have AIDS, and the mere act of touching me or providing CPR will contaminate them with gay? Will they see something other than a human in need of compassion and medical care?
Will today be the day I’m seen? Will it be the day I look into the mirror and see what others see? Will it be the day that I see someone who will always be seen as “less than?” Will it be the day when I think it just isn’t worth living while being seen this way?
Will I be seen?
If I’m seen, throw a brick for me. Worry about me at least as much as you worry about the window.
Gendered Thoughts 