Let’s not talk about Tyler Clementi.
Twenty-six-year-old Eyricka Morgan died earlier this week at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital after she was stabbed to death by a man living in her boarding house on Baldwin Street.
There are many among us who would like to know why the murder of a former Rutgers student in the town that we have come to call home is not enough to galvanize a national response to the violence that many transgender people, and especially transgender women of color, face on a daily basis.
But I don’t think that the trans* community needs to draw parallels to the struggles of a gay student in order to humanize our own experiences or make them more palpable to the masses. I want us to be defined by our own citizens.
This is why people who want to help should be asking what the murder of Eyricka Morgan means to us, and how this incident stymies our efforts to create a safe space.
Ask us how it feels to wait in line for food at the dining hall or ride the bus as our bodies are scrutinized by passerby, our secondary sex characteristics are subjected to appraisal, and our identities are invalidated by a lingering gaze.
Ask us how it feels when a file drawer full of death threats is not enough to mobilize university administrators to protect our trans* brothers and sisters in other states.
Ask us how it feels to know that our rapists were attacking a fundamental facet of who we are and why, consequently, opportunistic or random acts of violence mean nothing to us.
Ask us why random acts of kindness also mean nothing, and we will tell you that it is because the condition by which the kindness of a stranger is extended to us is our silence about our life experiences and who we actually are.
Do not further obfuscate the voice of Eyricka Morgan by publishing a name that she did not choose in local media outlets or by making claims that she faced constant “homophobia.”
Transgender people face “transphobia.” The speech and actions of the majority of people on this earth, including some who identify with the LGB community, serve to objectify and demean us. I frame my approaching graduation not in terms of my same-sex attraction, but in terms of my unique marginalized framework. When a recent Rutgers graduate is murdered a few streets away from where I had previously felt safer than anywhere else in the world, graduation can be seen as a catalyst for destruction at the hands of others and a safe space antagonist.
The perennial violence makes me feel dispensable, like a paper airplane, something that can be brought into this world only to be devalued and thrown away. I feel this way not because I am queer, but rather, because I am trans*. The number of faces that we can place to the malice aforethought and self-slaughter is unprecedented.
As I write this, I ask a close trans* friend of mine who is sitting next to me if it is a terrible thing to admit that there are times when I view myself, as well as other trans* people, as less than human. His chilling empathy is a reminder that the internalization of salient public stigma transfers the ownership of our bodies to the spirit of the times.
This pervasive attitude has profound repercussions, as fifty percent of us will have attempted suicide by our twentieth birthdays. I often ask myself if this means that the trans* community is half full, or half empty.
This is why when, in an attempt to bridge that gap between our lives and deaths, I don’t want to talk about Tyler Clementi, homophobia, or gay rights. Let us not launch these discussions under the LGB banner.
Instead, recognize what the murder of Eyricka Morgan means to us as trans* people.
Really obnoxious first and final sentences that take jabs at LGB people. Reality check please! LGB cispeople are not the ones bashing your heads in on the streets. Also, try replacing some of that trans separatism with some intersectional analysis. Why are these cisgender, heterosexual men enraged to the point of violence at transwomen they've had sex with? Because they're afraid that those carnal relations might make them gay. That's homophobia!
ReplyDeleteA minor point: "condition for the kindness of a stranger is our silence about our life experiences and who we actually are"? Duh, a stranger by definition does NOT know about your life experience and who you actually are.
A flaw in your logic: a murder of a relatively obscure Rutgers woman should "galvanize a NATIONAL response", but this kind of violence happens "on a daily basis"? So what makes this woman special?
An amusing presumption: "the trans* community needs to draw parallels to the struggles of a gay student in order to humanize our own experiences". As if gay people are already completely humanized and mainstreamed! In New Jersey, a court had to remove gender restrictions on marriage, because it couldn't pass through referendum or legislation. Also, Tyler Clementi was a pretty white boy.
People stare at you when you're in the dining hall or on the bus? Congratulations, you're in a 65,000-person meat market called Rutgers, and some people are quite possibly romantically interested in you. Or they're wondering why you're standing in front of the clock or committing some other social faux-pas. Frankly, there are thousands of possibilities for why their eyes might linger on your visage, and that's assuming that you're not imparting more significance to their glance than they intended in the first place.
I Googled the string {"Eyricka Morgan" + "homophobia"}, and the only article of substance, besides yours, is a Star-Ledger article that quoted a friend of hers who said that she experienced homophobia. In fact, this apparently widespread phenomenon of her trans-ness not being acknowledged is really a criticism of that single article. And she might have actually experienced homophobia, because many transwomen (and straight men for that matter) are misidentified as gay men and are mistreated as such.
Want to know why "our efforts to create a safe space" don't actually result in a safer world? It's because the idea of a "safe space" inherently excludes people who want frank, no-holds-barred debate about hot topics like gender. Censorship doesn't change people's individual opinions, much less a culture; it only changes individuals' actions in a tight, controlled space.
Your post is symptomatic of this intra-LGBT insularity. Your message is simply not targeted at the great unwashed masses, but rather at people who get worked up about Tyler Clementi -- which, let's face it, is a subset of an already small group of gays. As a result, it's just not relevant to a lot of people.
^^^^^^^^^^ Exactly what they said ^^^^^^^^^
ReplyDeletea) I love my allies and I appreciate the support of LGB people who are committed to helping the right way, but many LGB people have also treated me in an ignorant, hurtful manner. Many so called LGBT organizations will also be the first to throw us under a bus or ignore issues that are pertinent to the trans* community. Gay male culture in particular has made me feel very isolated, misunderstood, and alone.
ReplyDeleteb) Actually no, if I, a trans* person, am engaging in sexual activity with someone and my genitals enrage them to the point of violence, that is NOT homophobia. Even if this encounter causes my aggressor to question their sexuality, the word "homophobia" does not accurately describe my experience, nor does it even begin the capture the unique dynamics and challenges posed by MY marginalized framework.
c) While I am in no way undermining the hardships and struggles that many LGB people continue to face, as someone who identifies both as trans* AND as someone who is attracted to people of the same gender, I have to acknowledge that there is a HUGE discrepancy in the level of comfort that I have with both identities. I am genuinely proud of my queer, rainbow, flaming identity. I legitimately think that this part of me is gorgeous. Homophobia rolls off my shoulders and when I hear people using pejorative language or engaging in actions that demean gay people, I don't internalize their views. I see THEM as ignorant. I see the ignorance as THEIR shortcoming. THEY are behind the times, narrow minded, and bigoted. My trans* identity, on the other hand, is a great source of shame. When I hear derogatory things said about trans* people, I question my value as a person. I hate myself because this part of me has a lot less societal support. I don't think that the sharply contrasting perceptions that I have of these two identities is coincidental. Because our self-perceptions do not occur in a vacuum.
ReplyDeleted) Let's say I'm in public and I need immediate medical attention, for whatever reason. It's a crisis situation. Maybe I need CPR. Maybe there was an accident and I need first aid. Some random strangers are nice enough to stop by and help me out. They are happy to help. They go to take off my shirt or my pants. They aren't so happy to help anymore.
e) Okay so I don't think you understand that when I said someone was staring at me, I meant that this person positioned his head so that he could stare, very obviously at my chest, while he and his friend loudly tried to guess what gender I was. But honestly, that's not the point. It doesn't matter why someone is staring at me. People have a responsibility to not make other people feel comfortable. You think it's okay for a cisgendered heterosexual male to stare at a cisgendered female in a creepy way to the point that she feels eyeball raped, just because he's romantically interested in her? Does the reason matter, if a person is using their gaze in such a way so as to make the other party feel deeply uncomfortable?
f) I can tell you right now that just because a gay person said that Eyricka was experiencing "homophobia" does not in any way mean that this was the case. LGB people constantly use incorrect terminology when discussing trans* issues, and I have had a LOT of experience in this realm. So I take what he said with a grain of salt.
g) Transgender women of color are the biggest targets of violence out of like...anyone else in the LGBTQ community. In one study (Goldberg 2004), researchers found that 98% of all “transgender” violence was perpetrated specifically against people in the male to-female spectrum; of the 38 murders of transgender people reported internationally in 2003, 70% were women of color. According to a GLAAD report, 53 percent of anti-LGBTQ homicides were of transgender women, and 73 percent of anti-LGBTQ homicides were of colored people. I'm not trying to prove or even assume that Eyricka was murdered explicitly because she was a trans* woman of color, but I don't think you can ever, ever rule those factors out. You said so yourself that the situation calls for intersectional analysis. Would she have been murdered if she was a white cisgendered heterosexual male? Did her unique demographic factors prevent her from being perceived as human by the person who murdered her? The possibility can't be excluded.
h) Tyler Clementi was one of the first names I heard being thrown around after this happened. My attempt was to nip it in the bud.
i) Try expressing your opinions without the crutch of anonymity. At least I put my name out there.
Completely disagreeing with the above commentators, as a white cis queer woman. Will comment more later, have to go to work now :/
ReplyDelete