Transgender Declaration of Existence

EDITOR'S NOTE: This piece originally appeared as a Facebook post written by Gretchen Rachel Hammond. We use a version edited for The Tangled Thread with her permission.

This is more important than ever. We have no friends in the White House. We have very few in Congress. Trump's appointment of Pence, Bannon and so the Alt-Right has elevated walking piles of pure hatred into positions of influence.

As a community, we must come together. We must survive by uniting. Please share this. You can do so directly or copy and paste, personalize and add your own photo. If you are an ally, please note so at the end. This is not about ego. This is about confronting a danger to our civil rights and possibly lives that has never been more present:

TRANSGENDER DECLARATION OF EXISTENCE:

We are transgender and proud of that fact. But we live and work in a city, nation and world that is not.

We dared to cross the gender boundaries this society has set and imposes. For doing so, we are called “freaks” or “men in dresses" or "dykes".

We have become a resource for makers of pornography, a side-show attraction for the mainstream media, an “is she or isn’t she/ is he or isn't he?" property for humiliation or entertainment, pariahs to be pointed at, laughed at and separated.

We have been called “selfish”, “deviants, “psychotic for wanting to ‘amputate’ body parts'” or “abominations."

We are targets for religious extremists who use one verse in Deuteronomy to justify their hatred of us.

Throughout our lives, we have encountered physical and sexual abuse, loss of friends, loss of job(s), denial of employment, denial of a fair trial, imprisonment without cause, homelessness, divorces, children taken away from us, verbal and physical assaults, inadequate care, depression, isolation and suicidality. .

This narrative is shared in part or in whole, particularly by black and brown members of our community who are being slaughtered because of who they are.

We see young transgender individuals become a target for utter degradation or dehumanization by their class, workmates, pastors or family members . With nowhere to turn, no one who cares and having been taught by society with the opinion that their lives are worthless or, worse, they see no alternatives but to end their lives.

Discrimination against us occurs in all levels of society -- education, employment, housing, finance, the family and religion.

Transgender individuals of color have become targets for unrelenting hatred and brutal assaults on their mental and physical well-being in society.

Society dispenses with many of them completely, locking them away with populations inconsistent with their gender identity or placing them in solitary confinement “for their own protection.”

We are fighting an undeclared war waged against us every single day with absolute disregard for those who fall as a result of it.

Yet, every November 20th, we must mourn the hundreds lost each year worldwide-- hear their names and often the horrific manner in which they were murdered.

This year, more transgender individuals were murdered than any other in the United States.

Mainstream media could not care less. Those who report crimes against transgender people misgender or criminalize the victims.

Police departments could not care less. Murders go uninvestigated. Acts of violence against us are ignored unless we fight back, in which case we are jailed.

Transgender individuals deserve every chance at the equality framed into the American Constitution, but life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are denied us whether by employers, legislators, religious extremists and, in some cases, by advocacy organizations whose mission is supposed to help elevate us not turn us away or write us off.

In Texas and Ohio, we will forever be considered as the gender denoted by our chromosomes.

In North Carolina, we can be arrested for using the restroom.

Culturally, our contributions often remain marginalized. Transgender people are played by cisgender actors, more often than not they are caricatures, a source for amusement or reviled fascination.

We are placed away from society, outside it. We are denied entry into local businesses or denied the use of restroom facilities in public spaces or our places of work.

National LGBT advocacy organizations make promises to the transgender community that amount to no more than lip-service.

Woefully underfunded transgender advocacy organizations lack financial and public relations clout and must therefore tread water to survive while continually taking on a mountain of issues.

Yet, transgender individuals have proven again and again that they exceed society’s misconceptions of them.

They are no less lacking in capability, imagination or skill than their cisgender counterparts. Their contributions, with few exceptions, are unrecognized, but they can tend to the sick, provide legal or financial counsel, fight a war, act, write, sing, paint, lead a business or non-profit, organize, cook, build, program a computer or create applications.

There is NOTHING they cannot do and at which they excel.

We are whole in our experiences and our desire to live as ourselves and in peace, wishing for every chance to solve the conundrum of happiness in life that anyone in this world does.

We demand that our humanity and civil rights be recognized as such by a society which should be proud to include us in its struggle for the greater good.

We defy those who hate us.

We defy those would legislate against us.

We defy those who would dehumanize or demean us.

We defy those who would laugh at, attack or kill us.

We will fight for our collective humanity and we will not stop.

We will no longer be the victims of society, because we are the heroes of it.

I am Gretchen Rachel Hammond. I am transgender and I will be free to be me. #transwarenessweek #TDOR #transexistence Gretchen Rachel Hammond is an award winning senior staff writer with Windy City Times in Chicago.

#LGBT #lgbtq #suicide #teensuicide #gayrights #transgender #transgenderdayofrememberance