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Trans Lives Remembered, Honored In Community

Lucy Gellman | November 21st, 2024

Trans Lives Remembered, Honored In Community

LGBTQ  |  New Haven Pride Center  |  Transgender Awareness Week

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Michael Zief and Ian "Scooby" Rossman. Lucy Gellman Photos.

Ayden looked around the table, taking in everything at once. In front of him, framed portraits of Meraxes Medina and Honee Daniels looked back with wide, bright smiles. A rainbow-patterned tablecloth, large enough to be a giant Pride flag, stretched out with bands of color. The scents of pizza and nuggets, pasta and savory red rice wafted through the air.

He leaned back, and let himself be present. It was different from any other Trans Day of Remembrance he’d ever observed—because it involved a community that welcomed him, just as he was.

Wednesday night, Ayden joined two dozen people at the New Haven Pride Center for the 25th annual Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), a chance to grieve the lives lost to anti-trans violence in the U.S. and across the globe. Two weeks after the U.S. Presidential Election, it became a fierce call not just to mourn those who are gone, but to also fight tooth and nail for the living.

It was a collaboration with Mr. Connecticut Leather and the Providence-based Haus of Codec; more on that below. This year, it takes place against a national backdrop of escalating anti-trans violence, from the millions of dollars Donald Trump spent attacking trans people in the final days of his campaign to GOP attempts to bar Representative-elect Sarah McBride from using women’s restrooms in the U.S. Capitol building. 

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“My hope is that people will realize that we are people, that we will exist no matter what,” said Ayden, who asked that his last name and photo be withheld for privacy. “We are not going away … I will not go back in the closet.”

Transgender Day of Remembrance began in 1999 to honor Rita Hester, a Black trans woman who was stabbed to death in her Boston apartment in November 1998. In 2024 alone the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has reported the deaths of at least 30 trans people in the U.S., with more that have likely gone unreported (worldwide, the Trans Murder Monitoring Project reports that 350 trans people have been killed in the last year). It is not uncommon for families, law enforcement officials and media sources to deadname and misgender trans people in their obituaries.

This year, 77 percent of those killed were people of color, and 53 percent were Black trans women—itself an epidemic within an epidemic. Thirty-nine percent were killed by someone they knew intimately; 60 percent of victims were killed by a firearm. According to the HRC, at least 12 of them were misgendered or deadnamed in the press or by police and emergency responders. 

They include, for instance 26-year-old Quanesha “Cocoa” Shantel, a Black trans woman and member of the historic House of Mizrahi who was shot and killed by a partner in Greensboro, North Carolina earlier this month. Shantel, who first came out to her mom at just 11 years old, had started nursing school months before she was killed.

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Or Redd, an avid fan of Nicki Minaj killed in the small hours of the morning in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood, while she was spending time with friends on the city’s West Side. At 25, she was a vibrant member of Chicago’s TaskForce Prevention and Community Services and a beloved friend and daughter. Her cousin, Mariyah Philips, has told both police and the press that she is considering it a hate crime.

Or Tayy Dior Thomas, a 17-year-old Black trans woman who was shot and killed by her partner in Mobile, Alabama in May of this year. Her partner, who did want their relationship exposed, fired 18 gunshots into a car before allowing it to crash into the yard where her body was found.

Or 54-year-old hair stylist Reyna Hernandez, who went missing in Washington state in February, and was found shot and killed in Mexico one month later, with signs of torture on her body. Or 14-year-old Pauly Likens, who still had a baby face when she smiled. Or Andrea Doria Dos Passos, whose own struggle with homelessness highlights the vulnerable intersections at which trans people often live.

The list would be too long if it included even one person, many of Wednesday's attendees said; 30 is unbearable. 

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Juancarlos Soto. Revolutions are started in rooms like this, where people are breaking bread together."

“It’s a somber day, and a day that we get to say that we are going to protect trans people and we are gonna fight, fight, fight,” said New Haven Pride Center Director Juancarlos Soto, who gave brief comments but spent most of the night checking in on attendees. Politicians, he added, “don’t get to dictate by law or legislation who we are or who we love.”

“Revolutions are started in rooms like this, where people are breaking bread together,” he later added.

Wednesday, the Pride Center balanced a need to grieve with a fierce reminder of community, from mural-making and a new “self-care” corner with art supplies to the gentle rise and fall of conversation. At one end of the table, Mr. (or as he prefers, Mx.) Connecticut Leather Devonta Thomas introduced himself to attendees, never still for more than a few moments.

As a therapist and a queer person, his reason for attending was simple: “I love my trans community,” and he wants to see more members of it safely survive.

“People should be able to be who they want to be without being judged,” he said.

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In Providence and across the Northeast, Thomas’ work is part of that. Born and raised in Wichita, Kansas, he first came out as gay at the end of college when he was graduating and realized “I need to be true to myself,” he said. Not long after, he moved to Kansas City, and then to Providence.

The queer community there made him feel immediately at home. He was excited to share his professional work as an outpatient therapist with the community, including the Haus of Codec. TDOR is personal, he added: Thomas recently started to identify as gender fluid (he showed off a set of flawless, bone-white acrylic nails that he loves to click together), and has several friends in the trans community that have become his biggest and most trusted confidants and supporters. One of them, MT Hart, has encouraged Thomas’ foray into drag, where he performs as Kween Lola Loves A Lot. Before the end of the night, he added Hart’s name to a mural remembering and celebrating trans lives.       

Down the table, Ayden chatted with two friends who had come along from Gateway Community College, where he is currently an art student. Five years ago, he realized that he was trans—but didn’t have a place to safely express himself. At home in Wallingford—not a trans-friendly town, he said—his family insisted that it was just a phase. At school and social media, he was bullied and harassed relentlessly “for simply existing.”

“I’m introverted so I don’t usually leave my house,” he said. “But it’s a lot nicer to be around people.” In previous years, he’s observed TDOR by himself in his room, holding “my little Pride flag,” he said. This year, he turned to the Pride Center, which has become a source of solace and support during his studies at Gateway. Most of his clothes come from the organization’s community closet.

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Miller, who for years was afraid of falling through the cracks. Now, she's finding a community.

CJ Miller, who moved to New Haven two years ago from Stratford, echoed that gratitude for the Center. As a trans woman, she made the choice to settle in the Elm City for the social services it offered, including more resources for LGBTQ+ people. Two years later, she’s grateful for the community she’s slowly building. She comes to the Center’s monthly dinners whenever she’s able to.

“I’m starting to develop friendships,” she said. The dinners let her move at her own pace, navigating any social anxiety that may be there. “It’s different for me to just be in a place where I can connect with people over time.”

She’s grateful to have a place to recognize TDOR with people she knows (and those she is meeting for the first time), she added. A decade after coming out as trans—and 30 years after coming out as queer—she still struggles with “survivor’s guilt” when she thinks of who is no longer at the table.

“A few years ago, I felt like I could fall through the cracks,” she said, her mouth tight and twisting as she tried to fight back tears. “I’m glad that the community holds space. It makes me feel like these people are here for me.”    

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Top: Erycka Ortiz, who leads The Children of Marsha P. Johnson with and Alyssa-Marie Cajigas Rivera Ortiz.

In the back, Support Services Coordinator Bennie Saldana pulled the lid off another foil dish and headed for a long table, making sure there was enough to feed any late attendees who walked through the door. This month, he said, he let himself pause to take in the weight of TDOR and of feeding the community—particularly as LGBTQ+ people and organizations brace for a challenging four years ahead.

“We don’t stop, right?” Saldana said. “I don’t ever stop and reflect. But today, I took a second to look at the table and remember why we’re here. There are people who don’t want trans people to exist right now. And so this, tonight, is to reflect and also remember that there is still a lot of work to do.”

And indeed, it was a chance to remember that community is the antidote to isolation, in which fear, self-hatred and a host of -obias and -isms are often given free license to thrive. As they connected over the table—some for the first time—attendees also made a point to decorate the mural, mourn the lives lost and memorialized, and learn about Connecticut's efforts to protect trans people, including grassroots initiatives like The Children of Marsha P. Johnson.

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Top: Siblings Magdalena and Gabriela Diaz work on the mural. Bottom: A sculpture from Zief.

Several attendees also took time to mourn losses closer to home, including New Havener Maia Leonardo, who passed away in September 2021, and vocal trans activist and artist Tia Lynn Waters, who was more commonly known and loved simply as Bubbles. This year, Bubbles died at the end of October, less than two weeks before the election in which she had volunteered to be a poll worker.

Before they passed, both rarely (if ever) missed a TDOR event, whether it was held on the New Haven Green or at the Pride Center’s former location up Orange Street.

Bubbles’ recent, still-fresh absence, in a place that meant so much to her, was particularly palpable Wednesday night. During her lifetime, she often encouraged people to raise their voices and fight like hell, a powerful antidote to the hatred that was spreading across the country.

“There are so many girls that could be my sisters, my aunts, my cousins … who are not here because people think that we are not worthy of life,” she said at a TDOR event five years ago, as a cold November swept through New Haven and friends gathered in the Pride Center’s then-basement offices. “We need to be as visible as possible. We need to be as vocal as possible.”

If you or someone you know is looking for trans support and community, Trans Lifeline is accessible 24/7. The Trevor Project offers 24/7 confidential support for LGBTQ+ youth in crisis. Other resources include PeerPride, the Trans Women of Color CollectiveThe Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP), and The National Center for Transgender Equality.