Warsaw LGBT & Supporters Community

The Warsaw LGBT & Supporters Community are a loosely-organized collective with a minor Facebook presence.  Since I'm taking this class to build a skill set in benefit of my community, it makes sense for my project to be in service to that same community.  The class discussions with previous student about their projects made me wonder "what if nobody contributes to my project?"

Knowing that my anxiety was based primarily in the fear of the unknown, I decided to reach out to the FB group for some preliminary feedback: "I want to record stories of living as a queer and/or trans person in Kosciusko County - officially for a class project, unofficially because WE'RE WORTH IT DAMNIT.  My fear is that nobody will want to share their experiences, even if it's as confidential and anonymous as is possible."

The responses were enthusiastic.  People threw out a few ideas, and one member even connected me with a writer for a Kosciusko county newspaper.  It makes me glad to see that people want this, and that no matter how broad or narrow the reach of my final project, it is already bringing our community together.

Black Lives Matter

I don't know if I'll be able to complete the assignment for tomorrow.  I don't want to relive the terror of leaving live web feeds streaming while I try to get some sleep, waking up when things get loud, desperately checking the feed to see if I can spot my girlfriend in the rainbow hat I crochet'd for them to know that they're still safe.  One time I woke up to everyone trapped in MoKaBe's (a true Third Place), because the owner offered the people protection, so the cops surrounded the building and teargassed unarmed civilians including children.  I don't want to relive that moment - a swift google can find you the details.  But what I am going to share is a video filmed on the same location, a few nights later.  See if you can spot the tall girl in the rainbow hat [bottom-right corner].  See if you can feel the wash of relief that comes from knowing they might return home safe that night.

More information on the speaker in this video, Reverend Osagyefo Sekou, can be find in this Op-Ed for NBC.  I'm an atheist, but I hear the spiritual truths resonating in his words:

For young, poor black single mothers, kids with tattoos sagging their pants—anything less than putting your body on the line for them and being willing to pick up your cross in the case of state violence against them is heresy. You betray Christ if you do anything less.

Perhaps I can finish this assignment; and if I start to feel I am losing, I can listen to the heartbeat.

Cultural Genocide

In 1944, Raphael Lemkin created the term "genocide", defining it as “a coordinated strategy to destroy a group of people, a process that could be accomplished through total annihilation as well as strategies that eliminate key elements of the group's basic existence, including language, culture, and economic infrastructure. [0]”

I don't know the history of my people.  We seek fragments here and there, guesses based on hints in what documents have survived systemic cover-ups [1].  We were not the subject of academic research, except in the pursuit of a method to eliminate our kind [2].

I have not inherited the traditions of my people.  Our stories are re-written with other people in our roles, taking credit for our accomplishments [3].  Our rituals and celebrations are ridiculed and outlawed [4, 5].

I do not get to see examples of people like me living happily ever after.  We're the ones who are are disappeared, forced to pretend to be something we're not to blend in, snatched away and hidden in mental institutions designed to "cure" us by slowly killing us, murdered and filed away under another name and identity. [6]

From birth I was told "You do not exist. There are no words apart from slurs for people like you. You have no community. There is no place for you in our schools and workplaces."  Strategies that "eliminate key elements of the group's basic existence, including language, culture, and economic infrastructure.”

Forgive me if I don't see this as a matter of "personality differences". [7]

~

[0] Genocide

[1] The history gets fuzzy a few decades before the present.  Perhaps scholars may find a few hidden source documents from earlier than that, but most likely family and friends burned any secrets that they didn't want lingering to tarnish their names.  History of Transgender People in the USA

[2] Reparative Therapy

[3] Response to Stonewall Movie

[4] Trans Stereotypes in the Media

[5] History of Laws Against Cross-Dressing

[6] You google it. I've already seen too much of this in one lifetime.

[7] I realize any number of black/indigenous/latina, disabled, etc people could have written a similar post that would indict my whiteness, and I don't deny that one bit.