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Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance. For those of you who are just learning about it, this day commemorates those who met violent deaths on account of their actual or perceived gender identity and expression. It commemorates the 1998 murder of Rita Hester in the Boston suburb of Allston.
Like so many murders of transgenders--and that of Matthew Shepard, which preceded hers by a few weeks--it was notable for its gruesome overkill. For all of those who think that we're trying to make our deaths, and the ways in which we are victimized, seem more important than crimes against everyone else, I want to say just a couple of things.
First of all, murders of transgender (and other gender-variant people) have some of the lowest "solve" rates. When I wrote an article about the issue five years ago, 92 percent of such murders committed during the previous 30 years hadn't been solved, according to Interpol. That has much to do with the fact that they are not taken seriously by authorities in many places; among those in law enforcement and criminal justice, there is too often the attitude that we "had it coming" or that no one will miss us. The latter notion is, too often, true, for many of us have been cast aside by the families into which we were born or the ones we made. (In that sense, I am luckier than most, as my parents have been supportive even though they don't entirely approve of what I've done.)
Second, as I've mentioned, our deaths are some of the most gratuitously violent. In those cases in which investigators actually investigate our deaths, much less take those investigations seriously, police officers and coroners as often as not say that our murders are the most horrible they'd seen. As an example, just two weeks ago, a cross-dresser and a eunuch were tortured--Their eyes and nails were removed--and burned beyond recognition.
You might be tempted--as I would have been, not so long ago--to say, "Well, that's Pakistan. Things like that happen there." Indeed it is a conservative Muslim country. But there, as in India, there is a class of people--of which the two murder victims may have been part--called the hijra. They have been tolerated if not afforded equal status, but they have been increasingly marginalized, and even stigmatized, during the past sixty years or so. Still, the fact that they were even tolerated--if only for their usefulness as sex workers--makes them without parallel in most of the Western world.
(Ironically, "Hijra" is also the migration of the prophet Mohamed and his followers to the city of Medina in C.E. 622. Most Americans and Europeans know of that journey by its Latinized name, "Hegira." )
To his credit, the Police Superintendent Syed Amin Bukhari has actually formed separate investigative teams for each murder. And while some people still seem to think that they brought it on themselves by "bringing misery to the streets," as one commentor said, others have lamented the brutality of those slayings.
However, to find any of those attitudes expressed, or to know how brutal the murder of a gender-variant person can be, one needn't go to Pakistan. At least, I don't need to. All I have to do is ride my bike about half an hour from my apartment to Ridgewood, Queens, where Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar lived and died in March. Hers is one of the (too) many names being read at Transgender Day of Remembrance events this year.
Somehow, I don't think this will be the last time I mention her name. I know that there are others--some of whom I saw at the vigil held in front of her apartment--who will also keep her name, and thus her memory alive, for themselves and in the minds of those who investigated her killing. Even though they made an arrest and are to be commended for their work, I don't want them to forget, for her sake as well as that of anyone else who meets a fate as terrible as hers.
And I want to remember, and be sure they remember, her and the others because of what Voltaire said: On doit egards aux vivants; on ne doit aux morts que la verite: To the living we owe respect; to the dead, we owe nothing but the truth.
How many degrees of separation are there?
And, how close can you come with an offhand comment?
Well, today I may have a better idea of what the answers to those questions may be.
Janet, an instructor in the department, and I were just talking about one thing and another. I mentioned that I'd gone to the vigil for Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar.
"Where was it?"
"Ridgewood."
"Really? Where?"
I mentioned the street where Amanda lived, and died. Janet's eyes widened. "How do you know the neighborhood so well?"
"I wrote for the Ridgewood Times," I said, "which, of course became the Times-Newsweekly.'
Her eyes widened. "Then you knew Michael Rosario."
I thought for a moment. "Yes. He was the circulation manager."
"And soon he's going to be my ex-husband."
She then recited all of the names that would have been on the newspaper's masthead at the time my byline was appearing in it. I recalled most of them. "Practically all of them were at our wedding," she recalled.
"Wow."
"Now I understand something."
"What's that?"
"Well, when I found out your name, I thought it was familiar. Now I know why: I saw it on your articles."
"Yes, you would have."
"And now I know why i thought your name was Nicholas before you changed."
"That's because it was. My byline usually read "Nick Valinotti."
Now I have to wonder: Of the people who know me now, how many knew me then? I wonder now whether Janet knew Nick, even a little bit--and whether he or I knew her then.
Yesterday afternoon Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar, a transgender woman whose given name is Edelbuerto, was found naked and strangled in her ransacked apartment.
It's hard not to think it's a murder, although (at the time I'm writing this) the police and city officials can't yet label it as such, for legal reasons. It's equally difficult not to think that her death had something to do with her gender identity and expression. I mean, why else would her Marilyn Monroe photos have been destroyed? And why would she have been stabbed in the neck and chest several times in addition to having been strangled?
She lived and died in Ridgewood, a section of the New York City borough of Queens that's only a couple of neighborhoods away from mine. For two years, I wrote for the Times Newsweekly, the community's local newspaper. I felt as safe in Ridgewood as I have felt in any urban neighborhood in the United States. I had no fear of walking even the more remote streets of the industrial areas of the neighborhood's periphery after dark. I even left my bicycle--admittedly, my "beater"--unlocked while I covered school board meetings and other events. My wheels were as untouched as they would have been had I parked in Bhutan. I brought Tammy there once; after that, we talked about buying one of the stone or brick houses that line the neighborhood streets. I really thought I'd introduced her to an urban oasis, if not a paradise.
Then again, I was living as a man in those days, and my waist was sculpted by thirty to fifty miles of daily cycling and my shoulders from the weights I lifted every day. And my clothes, hairstyle and other markers of gender identity were completely congruent with those of other men of that neighborhood, and American culture generally. Plus--I never thought of this until now, at least not in reference to the time I spent in Ridgewood--I'm about as white as one can be.
Also, at that time, I didn't know Martin. He has lived in the neighborhood all of his life. (Technically, his place is in neighboring Glendale, which is a very similar kind of neighborhood.) And he's gay. While he seems never to have worried about meeting a fate like Amanda's, he has recounted incidents of harassment that stopped just short of physical violence. Among those with and around whom he's spent his life, he seems to have lived, and to be living, by a variation of "don't ask, don't tell." It seems that everyone knows about his sexual orientation, but he cannot talk to anyone about, say, his boyfriend(s), the way straight people can talk about their dates, lovers or spouses. He seems to find the arrangement no more bizarre than his neighbors and friends think it is.
In an environment like that, you get along by going along. The highest compliment someone can pay a neighbor is that he or she "doesn't bother anybody." And that is what someone said about Amanda yesterday.
It's not a hard sentiment to understand, especially once you've cycled the neighborhood streets and talked to local residents, most of whom are blue-collar workers and their families. People move to the fortress-like (though still very atttractive) stone and brick houses that line many of the neighborhood streets after working for years to save for the down payment. Those houses look almost exactly as they did when they were first built between 100 and 80 years ago by German immigrants. They are investments, shrines, heirlooms and fortresses, all at once, and their owners don't want them defaced. (Nowhere is graffiti more detested than it is in that part of Queens.) They help to make the neighborhood all but irresistible to those who want peace, stability and security above all else.
Those qualities make such a neighborhood attractive to transgenders, too. After Tammy and I split up and I started to live as Justine, I nearly moved there myself. It's never been known as an LGBT enclave, as parts of Jackson Heights and Astoria (where I now live) are. However, in addition to Martin, I know of a few other gays and transgenders who live there. I won't tell you who they are, as the only person I'll ever "out" is myself! Any LGBT person I mention on this blog has made his or her identity public or has been cloaked with a pseudonym.
Anyway...I never knew Amanda, so whatever I say of her thoughts or motivations is speculation on my part. Still, I am confident in saying that she probably felt some level of safety and security in living there. I'm guessing that she also lived "under cover": From the photos I saw of her, I'd say that she "passed" well enough to go "stealth." And, because most people in the neighborhood don't want to upset its serenity, they probably left her alone, even if they knew her identity.
Of course, the scenario I've just described has its own perils. One is isolation. Most people in the neighborhood are polite; some are cordial. But the extent of people's interaction with their neighbors is dictated by the amount of time they spend outside those stone and brick walls. This may have been one of the reasons why it took several days for anyone to realize that Amanda had gone missing, or that some other terrible fate had befallen her.
Now they are mourning her. So, in my own way, am I. If we--that is to say, our souls--go anywhere after this life, I hope Amanda finds love and acceptance there.
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