Transgender Day Of Remembrance Observed in SL
Writing by Green Guy on Tuesday, 20 of November , 2007 at 7:43 pm
by Penny Sautereau
The Transgender Murder & Suicide Memorial in Elysium, dedicated Tuesday November 20th.
Every year thousands of innocent people are murdered around the world for their beliefs, for who they are. Hatred kills people every day somewhere. Muslims are murdered for being Muslims. Jews for being jewish. Gays and lesbians for being gay and lesbian.
Every year a few hundred of those are Transgendered people, and of those only a handful get reported or noticed. Transsexuals, crossdressers, hermaphrodites. To the haters it doesn’t matter. You’re different, and to them that’s enough. The transgender umbrella holds a lot of different kinds of people under it, but to those who murder them, they all have one thing in common; They blur gender lines in ways that make many people uncomfortable. In the last 12 months alone, 17 TG murders have been reported in North America and Europe. Imagine how many weren’t.
And every year for nine years now, November has been home to the annual Transgendered Day of remembrance. This Tuesday is the 9th annual DOR, and the first to be honored on Second Life.
Everyone is somebody’s child
The Transgender Day of Remembrance began nine years ago to honor Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was murdered on November 28, 1998. The annual event was designed to raise public awareness of hate crimes perpetrated against transgendered individuals and to encourage people to be allies of the transgender community.
At a memorial built by Random Demina and Gwen Collins of the SL Transgender Resource Centre, an event was held Tuesday honoring the TG DOR, with a dedication of the shrine memorializing all the known victims of this specific hate crime, and to those who ended their own lives to escape the hatred. The Shrine is located in the Elysium Gardens, a sim dedicated to education about Transgender people and a supportive atmosphere for TG people who play Second Life. Supported by the Transgender Resource Centre, they staged their own TG DOR ceremony on Tuesday.
Says Random, “The crimes that are reported are just the tip of the iceberg. You can find more information on hate crimes at http://www.gender.org. I don’t have all the numbers, but i know its staggering. About 50% of Transgendered people will commit suicide, and less than 10% die of old age, or natural causes The key to survival is really finding the right information, and doing your best to live your life with pride, dignity, and class. It’s not an easy life to lead.”
Random Demina and Gwen Collins pose before the shrine they built
Gwen added, “The left column has a plaque that has the URL to the website that collects the names. This entire sim is a non profit, for the transgender community, and it is available for any GLBT event for free. TRC has already had events here, and we’re going to build an arena for that purpose. Club Cristi relocated here as well”
Club Christi, for those who don’t know, is one of the only Nightclubs on SL for Transgendered people to hang out and not be labeled or treated as sex objects. Shemale is an acceptable label for some TG people, but most find it distasteful, and the majority of “Shemale” clubs on SL emphasize pornography stereotypes, and not what life is really like for Transfolk.
Why build a shrine on SL? Said Gwen, “A number of things. First, there wasn’t one. Second, if we didn’t build it, who would? The reason why i created this entire sim was that there were only sex joints for the transgendered until now. If you search for transgender you find only horrible “shemale” joints, but nothing for the real people. And unfortunately suicides and hate crimes are part of being a transgendered, part of real life. So the memorial is very fitting here. A solemn reminder.”
And what motivated them to host an event commemorating the DOR? Random says, “Thats a long story. About a month ago, I was in a black mood and I went to the ASAGO memorial. It’s a memorial dedicated to suicides, more generalized. I was thinking of death, I’m sure you understand. For some strange reason, I decided not to kill myself. I felt there should be a memorial to TG suicides. So i started looking for a place to build it, and came here. When I talked to Gwen, she mentioned the DoR on the 20th, and we decided that would be the best day to open. Since i built the memorial, I wound up with the job of hosting the event. So in short, the memorial, and hostessing the service- both inspired by my own will to live. I’m here because I don’t have a choice.”
The memorial is open to anyone wishing to pay their respects to the dead, and to learn about Transgendered people from the nearby buildings such as the Transgender Resource Centre or Club Christi. If you want a candle dedicated to a fallen loved one who was Transgendered, IM Random Demina.
The Transgender Suicide Memorial is located in the Elysium Gardens.
For more information about Day of Remembrance visit http://www.rememberingourdead.org/day/
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