At TGI Network's Trans Day of Remembrance, the transgender community reflects on an uncertain future

“I’ve been told that Rhode Island is mostly a safe space, but I am concerned about my hormone meds being taken away or actually becoming illegal,” said a woman.

The TGI Network of Rhode Island is the only statewide organization focused on providing support and advocacy for the TGI community in Rhode Island and surrounding areas. On Sunday, at their Trans Day of Remembrance event, they read the names of transgender people who have been lost over the past year due to anti-transgender bias, prejudice, or hatred. The TGI Network of Rhode Island writes:

“The International Transgender Day of Remembrance began with a single candlelight vigil in San Francisco in 1998 after the murder of Rita Hester, a well-known transgender woman who was brutally murdered on November 28, 1997, and subsequently treated very disrespectfully by the Boston Police Department and various media outlets. Her murder is still unsolved, even though the police had several suspects at the time of the murder. Advocates believe it is because the police did not take the murder of a transgender woman seriously.”AtThe video of the names being read is included towards the end of the piece. But this year, due to the expected actions of an incoming Trump Administration poised to decimate the rights of transgender people, the event began with a discussion in which people were able to voice their concerns and fears. Rather than transcribe the conversation, I am pulling select quotes because the discussion was, at times, intimate and vulnerable.

“Traditionally, we’ve held these services in churches to give the victims of violence that we remember tonight what we have felt in the past was a proper memorial,” said Monique Paul from TGI. “But this year, we will first talk about the most recent election and the fears about how it will affect us in the coming years.

“I know some people who’ve removed themselves from all social media. I know others who’ve renewed their passports, just in case and others who have just applied for a passport. It’s a scary time in this world and for the community.”

TGI’s Janelle Heideman guided the discussion. “I want to guide our conversation in the spirit of community,” said Heideman. “How do we leverage our community to make ourselves stronger? What steps should we take? There are fears. I want to start by surfacing some of those fears. What things are concerning? There are a lot of things we don’t know right now. There’s a lot of unknowns.”

“I’ve been told that Rhode Island is mostly a safe space, but I am concerned about my hormone meds being taken away or becoming illegal,” said a woman.

“You’re right that Rhode Island has a lot of state-level protections, but there is talk of doing away with the Affordable Care Act, which is what makes sure that our trans-inclusive medications are included in what we’re getting through insurance,” responded Heideman. “That’s a real fear that I share.”

“I’m scared that they’re coming for our marriage status. I don’t know what that would do, and it terrifies me,” said a person in the audience.

“One of the fears I have is that school committees and school boards are going to feel freer to go after our trans kids in schools and do away with the protections that a lot of schools have,” said another person.

“All summer, I followed the pattern of school board meetings, thanks to Steve’s documentation here. I was heartened by some of them,” said Heideman. “We live in Pawtucket, and one of the school board members had a child who’s trans. That was like, ‘We’ve got somebody on our team!’ But that doesn’t mean they’re not going to come back. One thing we’ve learned about the assaults on the LGBTQ+ community is that they keep coming back.”

“One of the ideas is leveraging funding against us, meaning the federal government will say, ‘If you want our federal dollars, you have to comply with our policies, which are draconian and awful for trans people.’ The thing that scares me the most is that that [local elected officials] will back down, and trans people will get thrown under the bus as a community.”

“If anyone’s going to get thrown under the bus, it’ll probably be us,” responded Heideman. “In the wake of the election, we’ve already been blamed. I read somewhere that states that include abortion or trans care might lose Medicaid funds. Every state gets some funding from the federal government, and it could very well be that the federal government will have a say over how that money can be spent.”

“Trans youth in our country are already being persecuted in certain red states and getting their rights to medication taken away from them,” said a person in attendance. “When you have someone like RFK Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services that controls the FDA and all these other agencies, the attempt to ban these treatments nationally seems possible. I’ve met a lot of parents from Rhode Island who are concerned. To be honest, the trans community is low-hanging fruit for people who want to discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community because they don’t get the support they should from everyone in the community.”

“Back in June, I spoke with Patricia Morgan, the woman who was running for Senate against Sheldon Whitehouse,” said a TGI Member. “I asked her point blank about what her views are on trans children and what she thought the government should do if she became a senator. Morgan said that, in her opinion, trans children should be taken off of any medication they’re on, removed from the family, put in DCYF care, and the parents should be arrested for child abuse and put in prison. She thought this was her moral obligation because, in her mind, this was the right thing to do for these children. That is just scary as hell.”

“The scariest part is that she got 40% of the vote, and there are states in this country, not too far away from here, where her view would be in the majority,” said another. “Unfortunately, that’s where the political will is right now. It’s disgusting.”

“I fear that the LGBTQ+ community is going to splinter and not be there for one another because people will get scared and run the other way,” said an audience member.

“That’s the fear that I have,” came a reply.

“As a gay man, my allies have meant a tremendous amount to me in accepting me for who I am,” said an older gentleman. “I fear those allies will start hiding and not be there to support your concerns and the lives you want to lead.”

“They’re driving a wedge, not just into the progressive movement in general, but within the LGBTQ+ community because there is a vulnerability,” noted Heideman. “There’s a difference between gender and sexuality. That difference makes us vulnerable.”

“Considering that we’re going to be honoring the lives of people who have passed away through violence, the fact that law enforcement gives very little attention to their deaths in terms of trying to find out who committed these murders needs to be noted,” said an audience member. “There is a very low rate of finding the killers of these victims, and that’s been going on for years…”

“One of the people that was an inspiration death of Rita Hester up in Boston,” said Heideman. “That’s never been solved. That was the late nineties. A lot of these people, when it comes out that they’ve been killed, the names in the paper or that their family use are not the names that we’re going to read tonight. They are not the names they would have wanted to be read…”

Here’s the video of the names being read. From left to right are Brianna Anderson, Janelle Heideman, and Court Smith.