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By Rebecca, November 20, 2009 11:40 am

Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day “set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice.” There’s an expectation that The Trans Community is supposed to come together and mourn our dead, celebrate our living. (Indeed, I’ll be performing tomorrow night at Center on Halsted’s Night of Fallen Stars, set up to do just that.)

I mentioned last year that I felt really disconnected from the TDOR, and I’m not sure my feelings have changed.

QueenEmily at Questioning Transphobia wrote a post, the drowned and the saved, today in which she said

There was an Italian atheist Jewish writer called Primo Levi who wrote about his experience of Auschwitz, over and over.  In his last book The Drowned and the Saved, he drew up a distinction between “the drowned” (those who died) and “the saved” (those who lived).  He argued that only the drowned could give true and full witness to the horror of the Shoah.

I’m not comparing the murders of trans people to the Shoah directly – the murder of trans people, which horrific, is not institutionally organised towards genocide in quite the same way.  But what I want to point out is the structure of witnessing.  Even Levi, a man who lived through the camp, at the end of his life felt inadequate to witnessing, unable to have fully experienced the violence he wrote about.  Even his proximity was not enough.

She goes on to say that, even with her own experiences of transphobic hatred, it is impossible to properly give witness to those murdered, particularly across cultural or racial lines (most of those murdered this past year where latino or black, and in Central or South America). But that we should try, anyway, because it is our duty and responsibility to the dead.

Continue reading 'Transgender day of what?'»

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By Rebecca, November 17, 2009 9:42 pm

I just got home from a Ladies of Chicago Theatre evening (I think the first). Two Executive Directors from large(r) Chicago theatres invited women who are Managing Directors, General Managers, and Executive Directors at other Chicago area theatres and arts organizations to one of their homes for food and drinks and networking.

I was worried that everyone would be considerably older than me, that everyone would be from larger theatres than where I work, that everyone would know I was trans and reject me from this “women’s only” space, that everyone would already know each other and I’d sit alone to the sidelines, that I’d leave feeling a more heightened sense of a lack of communities in my life.

I had a great time, and left feeling really good about the whole experience.

Continue reading 'Community'»

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By Rebecca, October 20, 2009 12:05 am

I have a love/hate relationship with Halloween. On the one hand, it’s hard to argue with candy, parties, and costumes. On the other hand, it’s the day before my birthday, which means I’m always obligated to be doing Halloween-ey things instead of whatever party I’d like to be having. I actually got Halloweened-out for a few years as a teenager, because I’d had Halloween birthday parties for the previous decade.

This year, my roommates and I are again having a Halloween party. It’ll be on Friday, the 30th, so planned to leave time for everyone to go out and/or go to the other inevitable parties on Saturday, the actual night of Halloween. I’m actually pretty psyched about the party; it should be good friends, and my roommates are indulging my ridiculous costume idea: one of them is dressing in a gold dress, and will be a gold-backed currency, I’ll be in a silver dress, as silver-backed currency, and the other is going to wear a shirt saying “What would you trade for me?” as a barter-based economy! (I’m a giant dork…)

The assumption seems to be, though, that we’re also all going to go out together on Saturday night. But I’m really not interested in going out to Wrigleyville again, even if this time everyone will be in ridiculous costumes. And, thus far, the only other party I’ve been invited to that I’d really want to go to is also on Friday…I can’t exactly ditch my party to go to another one. What I’d like to do is have my birthday party on the 31st, on the weekend of my birthday, and stay in with drinks, Rock Band, maybe some singing around the piano… But I’ve been told (repeatedly) that I’m not allowed to do that, and no one will come if I try. (Which isn’t unreasonable,  but does speak to the lousy birth date I have.)

This is also all part of the larger feeling I’ve been having, of a dearth of queer friends and an utter lack of queer community. And I don’t feel close enough to the few queer friends I do have – or, at least, the queer people I’m friendly with – to simply invite myself to whatever they’re doing for Halloween.

Continue reading 'All Hallow’s Eve'»

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By Rebecca, November 26, 2008 6:01 pm

I talked with my therapist last night about what I’d ruminated on in this post about the Trans Day of Rememberance, and thought I’d share my thoughts.

Basically, I’ve been thinking about what community support I need right now. The mentorship and performance (final night went well!) have made me think about this, too. Basically, if I’m identifying as an out trans woman, and as a an out trans female performance artist, what do I need from those communities (queer in general, trans specifically, and artistic) and how do I want to allign myself with them?

The TDOR event was disapointing in large part because it didn’t satisfy my desire to be part of either community – trans or artistic – that I was hoping to get from the experience. On the flip side, I was very concious of how the different people who came to see the performance this weekend affected me  – family, friends, people from the Workshop, and people from the trans youth group I’ve attended on-and-off. Each group was tremendously important, but the feedback from the two trans facilitators who came was somehow satisfying in a way I hadn’t previously experienced – these weren’t only people I respected as loved ones or as artists complimenting me, but other trans people who were saying I’d done a good job communicating something about that very unique experience.

And I want more of that, but I’m not entirely sure where to get it.

-R