

Trans Deaths, White Privilege - transman
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/22/opinion/trans-deaths-white-privilege.html?

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kelukelugames
At first I thought, "there is no way all of these happened in the same year."
Then I clicked through a few links to check the date, and a few more. o_O

~~~
transman
In November each year there is an International Transgender Day of
Remembrance. In memorials around the world the names of those murdered for
being, or appearing to be, transgender individuals during the previous year
are read [1]. These lists include sources verifying the details of their
murders.

Counts differ widely because some sources will discount 'gender identity' as a
motive, not count a violent crime against a transgender person as a 'hate
crime'. For example, the very first link in the OP quote the police as
stating, “It’s obviously a man, right? He doesn’t have a female name. I am not
going to get into a debate about if he was transgender or not.” Meanwhile a
friend of the victim who was at the scene of the crime –i.e. knew the victim
personally and interacted with the perpetrator– stated, “If a person gets mad
at you for being transgender and then comes back and kills you because his
pride was crushed, and he was interested in someone he thought was a woman,
it’s a hate crime,” So the police didn't categorize her murder as transgender-
related, even though there is reasonable evidence that it was.

Even with differing counts, the number of transgender people murdered in the
U.S. this year, and we're only in August, is at a historic high [2].

\---

[1] Here's the list of _known_ victims, internationally, from 2014 -
[http://tdor.info/memorializing-2014-2/](http://tdor.info/memorializing-2014-2/)

[2] [http://transequality.org/blog/gender-based-violence-
against-...](http://transequality.org/blog/gender-based-violence-against-
trans-women-claims-more-lives) , [http://time.com/3999348/transgender-
murders-2015/](http://time.com/3999348/transgender-murders-2015/) , and
[http://www.metroweekly.com/2015/08/transgender-targets-
trans...](http://www.metroweekly.com/2015/08/transgender-targets-trans-murder-
rates-are-out-of-control/) (must deal with advertisements and a survey, but
the article itself illustrates well some of the challenges that transgender
people deal with.

------
transman
As a transman, I have experienced discrimination (a) as a woman (before I
transitioned), (b) as a known transgender individual, and (c) as a man [1]. So
I have a lot of empathy for women, both cisgender and transgender, within the
tech world. That said, whenever I see photos of American tech company
employees, I can't help but notice the complete or near-complete lack of
African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Latino Americans [2].

While the lack of certain ethnicities in the tech world does not compare to
the deaths of _Papi Edwards, Lamia Beard, Ty Underwood, Yazmin Vash Payne,
Taja Gabrielle DeJesus, Penny Proud, Kristina Gomez Reinwald, Londyn Chanel,
Mercedes Williamson, India Clarke, K. C. Haggard, Amber Monroe, Shade Schuler,
Kandis Capri, Ashton O’Hara, Elisha Walker, and Tamara Dominguez_ , there is a
common theme of not even being aware of, or acknowledging that there is, a
problem.

For most of us, including myself, the lack of awareness or acknowledgement is
because we are fairly isolated [3]. So one of the big steps is just increasing
awareness. Of course, acknowledging there is a problem is also important.
Likewise, it is important to acknowledge that people of color, transgender
people, and transgender people of color are genuinely human and worthy of
respect as fellow humans [4].

\---

[1] Most recently, I was denied a job, despite being _eminently more qualified
on every advertised measure_ than the woman who got the position. When I
respectfully confronted a key individual in the company, my suspicion was
directly confirmed by that individual (i.e. "No, you were never seriously
considered because you're a guy, but HR said we _had_ to interview men so it
didn't look like discrimination"). It was blatant enough that this person was
willing to testify to it in court if I wanted to pursue legal action, and
actually encouraged me to do so. The one upshot of this incident was the
willingness of someone in authority to confirm the discrimination. In my
decades living as a woman, the preponderance of evidence made it clear that I
was being discriminated because of gender, but the handful of times I
confronted someone in authority it was denied or danced around.

[2] For example, take a look at employee pictures from these randomly
selected, well known within this community, tech startups:
[https://github.com/about/](https://github.com/about/) , [https://slack-
files.com/files-pub/T024BE7LD-F03LQMUD8-0a2227...](https://slack-
files.com/files-
pub/T024BE7LD-F03LQMUD8-0a22277c6f/slack_anniversary_infographic.jpg) (pink
section), [https://squareup.com/careers](https://squareup.com/careers) ,
[https://grandst.com/team](https://grandst.com/team) , and
[https://www.uber.com/jobs](https://www.uber.com/jobs) . The most diverse I
found, in the few minutes I was searching, was
[https://www.hipmunk.com/about](https://www.hipmunk.com/about) , out of 35
employees shown there's still only one of clear African descent, but there are
several people who could be of Hispanic or Latino descent.

[3] I'm at a small start-up, and we're all Caucasians.

[4] I recently had an extremely awkward conversation with someone in the tech
community about transgender individuals. This individual certainly does not
know I'm transgender. The hatred and degrading language this person used
proved to me that they do not see transgender individuals as beings worthy of
basic human rights or respect. While the opinions of someone like that cannot
be changed in a single conversation, I hope my comments start to humanize
transgender people for this particular individual.

