Monday, November 20, 2006

A day of rememberance

Today is “Transgender Day of Remembrance.” A day to remember and celebrate the lives of a misunderstood and marginalized group of individuals who disproportionally suffer from the prejudice of society. Last night I watched an excellent documentary that showed me another aspect of life where our country has not shown an ounce of compassion for those who are different. The documentary is titled Cruel and Unusual and explores the treatment of transgendered individuals in U.S. correctional facilities. Gay and lesbian activist have made some progress in extending their activities and organizing under a more inclusive umbrella of “queer” activism that forms bonds with transgendered and intersexed human rights groups. But I feel that not nearly enough is being done. I’m particularly concerned about the health of transgendered populations. There is no question that they suffer disproportionally from physical and mental illness. Some alarming statistics on violent crime estimate that transsexuals have a 1 in 12 risk of being murdered compared to the 1 in 18,000 for an average person. Evidence of the extremes that societies will go to in order to maintain and impose strict gender dichotomies that most of us in the social sciences know to be false. New York City is making some progress for the acknowledgement of the rights of transgendered people by changing their laws to allow transgender men and women to permanently change the sex status of their birth certificates.

Posted by RiOtPoOf on 11/20 at 02:10 PM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink