A Girl Named Gwen

Are you a parent?

Imagine you had a 17-year-old child, a child who's full of dreams and hopes. Imagine your child kissed you goodbye, telling you that she was going to a friend's party. What if this was the last time you would hear her voice?

You got a phone call the next day. It was from the coroner's office. They asked you to go down to the morgue to identify a body. How would you feel?

Imagine what you saw. What was once a beautiful face is now covered with blood and bruises. You could barely keep your feet sturdy. It was your own child. What if your were told that your child's cause of death was strangulation after being brutally beaten with a skillet? All that is in your mind now is that you will never see your beautiful angel again. All the lessons you saved for her when she gets older. The lessons of womanhood and lies that boys will tell. Your gift from God has been violently taken away from you.

The police finally found the people who committed the despicable crime. In the court room filled with curious bystanders, you learned that 3 adults had been intimate with your minor child and there defense attorney was implying their innocence and accused your child robbing these men's right to be hetero sexual. How would that make you feel.

Imagine in the court room, you have to relive the night when your child was brutally murdered. The witnesses, the murders took that stand and described what happened the night when they forced your child to disrobe against her will. How would that make you feel?

Was there a moment of doubt in your mind that your child's death was a cold-blooded murder?

Sylvia, we all feel your pain and could not even imagine what went through your mind when the judge declare in court that this was a mistrial. The thought of having to sit through yet another trial angers me. I cannot help but to wonder if Gwen has known that she has many brothers and sisters who wanted to show her a world full of love and beauties. She would have a place to go to any time. If we have begun education about acceptance and tolerance.  Would Gwen have met with different fate?

The Trans March and Trans Altar is happening and how we wish that Gwen would have been here with us. We cannot bring Gwen back but we are committed to prevent another Gwen Araujo from meeting the same fate as your beautiful angel. Our youth are our future and let's help make this a safer place. This is the time to come out and we can make a difference. Those who remain in the closet will only encourage ignorance.

Let's all march in unity to show the world that we have no room for hate.

Good night, Gwen. We love you.

Please donate To The Gwen Araujo's Fund

Tranny Friday - June 25, 2004

Trans March and Trans Altar

The word is out - we are going to have our own Pride Celebration on Friday 25, 2004! More information about this historical Friday can be found currently on SF TEAM.

What is SF TEAM ?

SF TEAM stands for San Francisco Transgender Empowrment, Advocacy and Mentorship.. Our mission is to commemorate our heritage, to empower and nurture transgender and gender-variant individuals; and to increase visibility to promote positive social change.
 

About Human Rights Campaign - What They Are NOT Doing!

It's Pride Season: Tell the HRC that the T is not silent!

You have read how the HRC has systematically worked to exclude transgender people from inclusion in federal non- discrimination legislation. You are probably tired of them giving us lip-service inside the GLB/T "community," while distancing  themselves from us in the work they do with straight/nontrans policymakers.

Well, it is Pride season, and a simple idea is making the rounds. Instead of having frustrating and meaningless dialogues with the HRC clipboard volunteers at your local Pride celebration, carry a colored pen around with you. When they come over and ask you to sign up on their address & contact list, simply write in the line given you "Another Transperson Excluded from ENDA." (Or, if applicable: "The Partner of...," “The Friend of…” etc.) Be polite; if they ask, explain briefly, but remember, you are talking to someone who has good intentions but no power. (The effect we are going for here is drops of water on the stone.)

Here are several reasons why the write-in-Trans-ID might be a good tactic:

- There are more of them than there are of us willing/able to chase after them all day at Pride. (Why let them ruin our good time?)

- This is something that many people can do to self-identify and stand in solidarity with us, so we can put the word out through local lists and boards.

- Transpeople who are not very out can participate; allies and partners can also participate, as our families are not being served by HRC's mission either.

- It is a non-confrontational way to get some numbers to the HRC: when the sheets go back to headquarters, we will be there, undeniable, while anecdotes of a few of us chasing the clipboarders around will likely be dismissed as merely the actions of a small fringe group. (I don't think sheets which already have addresses on them will be discarded.)

- Those nontrans people who see the clipboard next can ask about our write-ins. Or if our write-ins make the clipboarders turn the page, well then, they run out of pages sooner!

- Trying to stop nontrans people who otherwise wish to support the legitimate goals of HRC might give the nontrans folks the impression that the trans community is annoying, disruptive, and disgruntled (which we are, but shh!) -- and use an irreplaceable education-moment to teach them incorrectly that we are in "opposition" to their issues (which would actually support the HRC's agenda of splitting us off from the herd).

This is not meant to discourage direct action when necessary -- it is simply another way we can get our message and numbers across.

Feel free to repost this as appropriate