Culture

On Transgender Day of Rememberance, Remember That Black Trans Lives Matter, Too


 

When I heard about the death of Tony McDade earlier this year, a Black transgender man who was shot and killed by Tallahassee police, it struck a nerve. I’m a Black transgender man, too. I remember one night when I first started transitioning, coming home on the BART train in the East Bay outside San Francisco. It was late at night and all I had to keep warm was my hoodie. Without thinking, I put up my hood and started to make my way home, before realizing that having a hood up in a white neighborhood was a death sentence for Trayvon Martin — and that as a young, Black man, my fate could be the same. As a trans guy, I never had “the talk” that young Black boys get from their parents, the one that teaches little Black boys how to behave in the presence of police. One of the challenges of my transition came in adjusting to the new ways the world might perceive me as a threat. Black bodies are already seen as a disposable menace; being transgender only heightens that reality.

Today marks Transgender Day of Remembrance, which honors the memory of those whose lives were lost to anti-transgender violence. The tradition was established in 1999 by the transgender writer and activist Gwendolyn Ann Smith to honor Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was brutally murdered in 1998. Yet though issues related to the transgender community have only become more prominent in the decades since, acts of transphobic violence continue to grow. At least 37 known transgender and gender nonconforming people have been killed in the U.S. this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign, marking the deadliest year on record for the community. The overwhelming majority have been Black and Latinx trans women.

2020 has been a mixed bag when it comes to trans rights and milestones. In June, the Supreme Court handed down a historic decision proclaiming that LGBTQ+ people are protected from workplace discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This June’s Brooklyn Liberation march drew out over 15,000 people to support Black trans lives, resulting in an awe-inspiring display of solidarity and support. Yet the community has dealt with many setbacks as well, including a rule handed down in June by the Trump administration seeking to erase trans health protections from the Affordable Care Act — delivered on the anniversary of the Pulse massacre, no less — as well as discriminatory federal and state legislation against trans people in homeless shelters, student athletics, prisons, and much more.

This August, New York City agreed to pay a record $5.9 million settlement to the family of Layleen Xtravaganza Polanco-Cubilette, an Afro-Latinx trans woman who was found dead in her cell after being held in solitary confinement at Rikers Island last year. Layleen Xtravaganza Polanco-Cubilette’s story is both common and unique. It’s common in that it underscores the oppression that Black and Latinx transgender women face every day, and the unique and insidious ways that racism, classism, and transphobia intersect to oppress them. However, its complexity highlights everything that is wrong with the criminal justice system, how it targets Black and Latinx trans bodies and why these systems need to not just be reformed but abolished altogether.

Transgender women of color like Layleen are often targeted by New York City Police and become subject to a unique “stop and frisk” policy (often known as the #WalkingWhileTrans law) that allows police officers to profile, harass, and unjustly arrest trans women on the street who are perceived to be sex workers. In these cases, Black and brown transgender women are especially targeted, and if police find condoms on them, they can be used as evidence to suggest they are sex workers regardless of whether that is true. Layleen herself was arrested on a prostitution charge in 2017. In New York State, in an effort to curtail prostitution prison sentences, a series of Human Trafficking Intervention Courts were set up to provide services and rehabilitation to those arrested. Layleen showed up to her human trafficking intervention court date. However, her missed attendance to some of the classes provided by the special court system landed her a misdemeanor, creating a warrant for her arrest, which was brought up in 2019 and landed her with a bail of $501 set before her next trial. Layleen could not afford the high bail amount and then landed in prison at Riker’s Island, the same place that the human trafficking intervention court system was supposed to prevent her from attending.



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