Hate Crimes ... Reprise

Little did I realize that when I wrote about hate crimes law yesterday that it was a day set aside by the transgender community as Transgender Day of Remembrance to acknowledge transgender people killed by others - mostly for being transgender in the first place.

Then I ran across Georgie Binks article on CBC today.

So much violence has been visited on the transgendered that Nov. 20 has been designated National Transgender Remembrance Day. Numerous transgendered people have been murdered over the years: the website Remembering Our Dead lists dozens of them who were shot, stabbed or otherwise killed.

And it continues. In January 2007, Keittirat Longnawa was beaten by nine youths who then slit her throat in Thailand. Michelle Carrasco was found in a pit with her face completely disfigured in Santiago, Chile, in March. ...

Violence happens, but it should never happen to someone simply for being different. Nobody deserves the kind of fate that blind malice and ignorance can impose. Being different - visibly or not - is not a crime.

Read Georgie's narrative about her encounters with Leslie, and it will remind you that above all else, no matter how different or unusual someone's story may be, they are still emphatically human, with families, feelings and lives.

[Update: Nov 22]
A friend brought the following comment on Georgie Binks' column to my attention:

...
Maybe once in while we could contemplate those who sacrifice self-fulfillment for the benefit of others and sacrifice their own dreams to protect those they claim to love. In my mind, they are the true heroes.

Apparently the writer of this has never faced himself in the deeply personal way that anyone who is transsexual ultimately must. Even more unfortunate is that he failed to read a couple of key aspects of Leslie's story correctly:

In fact, she'd lived a pretty normal suburban life. Married for 30 years to the love of her life, she had a couple of kids, a good job, and enjoyed a night out with the boys. But inside, Leslie had always felt she was a woman and I wanted to hear her story.

Thirty years of self-doubt, of trying fit into a life that feels "wrong" at some fundamental level isn't a sacrifice? Trying to hold yourself together to make a marriage work for three decades is not a sacrifice? Sorry, but this is one of those moments where I must borrow a line from a now old, but favourite movie of mine:

"Sometimes the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many" (Star Trek III: The Search For Spock)

I do not know how good the relationship between Leslie and her now ex-spouse is, but if they have managed to remain on speaking terms, I'll bet that it will be a lot healthier now that Leslie is living as she felt she was intended to.
[/Update]