We need more than a week

Trans awareness week is November 14th through the 20th. Yeah. I hear you.

But it’s February! Why are you talking about this, now?

Well, maybe because I don’t think a week is enough. Maybe because transpeople and other gender-non-conforming people, are dying in absurdly, terribly, high numbers. Here we are, at the end of the second month of the year, and there have been at least six murders, and at least three suicides.

That’s nine deaths. Nine lives snuffed out, at least in part because of their gender identity.

And that?

IS. NOT. OKAY. 

So, I say that a week isn’t enough. I say that we need to be raising awareness, educating, advocating, and supporting transpeople EVERY DAMNED DAY.

We need to be letting transpeople know that they have our support, and that we will back them up against the judgment, bigotry, hate, and fear that they face in the wider culture. We need to be advocating for tougher laws, concerning hate crimes. We need to be speaking up, every day, until this horrible pattern is no longer a real thing.

 

So, I don’t really want to wait until November rolls around again. And I don’t want you to, either.