Make Love to Rage by Morgan Robyn Collado

The seats are always filled with white people and non-trans women. Trans Day of Remembrance is filled to the brim with the names of murdered Black and brown trans women, but is a single evening of remembering enough? And what does it mean that TDoR doesn’t explicitly talk about race and is often dominated by white people? Here in Austin there’s this tradition of calling the names of the dead and then having an audience member sit in a chair that represents where the dead trans woman would sit. All for daring to share my thoughts on the world around me.

I have been called Austin “queer scene’s” number one enemy. And when we dare to call people out for their transmisogyny, we are labeled crazy, hysterical, divisive. We have a hard time finding dates, finding support, finding community. I have seen more than one cis queer say that we have nothing in common with them, that our issues are completely unrelated. And I’ve seen more than one cis queer say that trans women are “appropriating” the gay rights movement, totally ignorant of the fact that we started the damn thing. Women’s spaces are frequently hostile to us because we aren’t “real women” but trans men almost always get a free pass. Trans women are pushed out of queer spaces by cis people, dfab genderqueers, and trans men, just to name a few.

The names of trans women of color will be in the mouths of the queer community after they’ve been murdered, but support for us while we are still alive is sporadic at best. There’s an interesting phenomenon that I’ve witnessed over the past few years.

The Autostraddle Encyclopedia of Lesbian Cinema.

LGBTQ Television Guide: What To Watch Now.

Make Love to Rage by Morgan Robyn Collado