Speaker For The Diodes - November 20th, 2010

05:24 am - QotD

"Lowering the suicide rate among trans folks requires the same sort of work that will best combat violent crimes committed by other people against trans folks. We need to do a lot of consciousness raising work to spread awareness of the very existence of trans folks. Sadly knowing we exist is not enough - we must also convince people that trans folks are human, that our lives have value. And this requires convincing people that their limited conceptions of gender are not all there is, a massive undertaking given the widespread unquestioning acceptance of the compulsory gender binary." -- Jos, 2009-11-20

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List of 12th Annual International Transgender Day of Remembrance events in various cities (most of them today, of course.
List of 179 known murders of trans people since last November's TDoR, the four deadliest countries for trans people this year having been Brazil (91), Guatemala (15), Mexico (14), and the USA (14). Okay, so the US isn't losing as many of its trans citizens to murder as Brazil is, but that's still more than one trans murder victim a month right here at home.
Data from past years
(Links via Questioning Transphobia and TransGriot)

"I have a lot of trans friends and I worry for them a lot. I never want to see any of their names on this list. I don't want to see anyone's name on this list. It's appalling what people will do to each other just because someone doesn't fit into a neat category." -- erynn999, 2008-11-20

(I usually try to pick something silly for Saturdays, but for me and others in my community, this isn't really the day for silly. Monica Roberts explains a couple of other things it isn't.)