There is a difference between wishful thinking and wishful ignorance. When Barack Obama became President, I thought it was the end of racism and when the closets that surrounded LGBT people were kicked down by ACT UP, I thought it was the end of homophobia, any of those phobias. At least here, at least in my left wing, libertarian, enlightened part of the world.
So when I came to write about the Transgendered lead singer of Against Me, Laura Jane Grace, my criteria was not much based upon her gender except to note that for a man who wanted to a woman he didn’t look much like a woman.
But that was a few days ago and while I realize that a friend like Stephanie Elliott Lowther might know me well enough to realize that my indifference was more wishful ignorance than anything else, I read a story that left me wondering if wishful ignorance was a position I could allow myself to wallow in any longer. This happened on Thursday.
Islan Nettles, a transgendered woman of 21 was beaten to death. GLAAD reported it as follows: “Islan Nettles, a New York City transgender woman of color, has died after an attack in the early morning hours of August 17. According to DNA Info and the NYPD, Ms. Nettles and her friends were on West 148th Street and 8th Avenue on Saturday night when one or more people attacked her, using anti-gay and anti-transgender slurs. Ms. Nettles was taken to Harlem Hospital for her injuries and, on Thursday, was taken off of life support and died. One person has been arrested in relation to this incident.”
This sort of story is bewildering and it gives us all pause. How a woman can be murdered for being transgendered is beyong me. I realize there are many things to be outraged about in this world. 1000s of children being gassed to deah in Syria last week is pretty awful for one. But, there is so much to be upset about it is hard to know where to begin and you can’t spend your life outraged over everything, you can’t live that way.
So what matters is what you notice and this story, mostly because I happen to be writing about transgendered people recently, caught my attention. In the music and advertising communities in which I live, homophobia is the same as racism. It is a non-issue and anybody who displaced either traits would be ostracized (of, course misogyny is a different matter). Even the hip hop community are seeing the light with Frank Ocean coming out.
This is New York, man, why are people bothering transgendered people?
Or, for that matter, homosexual people, transphobic, homophobic: those people are out there, no, really. My good friend Steve Diamond told me about going home with friends from nightclubs at 4am in the morning back some 20 years and being spat on for being gay. Really? Somebody would spit on Steve Diamond? You may, not know him, but really, he sort of demands your respect just in the way he handles himself. Last week Diamond was the object of an outrageous act of homophobia:
“A number of my friends have posted on my wall “Shut it down” and I wanted to let everyone know why. After rushing to make a train this week I was verbally assaulted by a woman who called me a faggot three times.
This happened after I bumped into her while the train doors were closing.
Initially I decided to walk away and write her off as crazy. It then escalated to where she called me a faggot… a 2nd and 3rd time. All this on a train full of people and each time getting louder. It was at this point that I looked at her and told her I was a faggot and that this faggot would shut her down. It was also at this point that my love for New York City was confirmed as people on the train began to clap and cheer in support.
At this moment the train doors opened and the woman fled. Make no mistake about it that after I came down from adrenaline high I became very upset. All good now!Much love to my friends and family for their love and support. SHUT IT DOWN!!! “
Shut it down. Shut it down is what should happen. And what people as brave as Laura Jane Grace and Steve Diamond will help to have happen. Shut it down because our brothers and sisters are in danger, and more, every injury, every curse, every boot and every beating, happens to us: encroaches on our freedom to be ourselves. But it isn’t over yet as the fate that befell Islan Nettles proves.