i
From anger
To love
In Pride.
Fiftieth anniversary
Of Stonewall Riots
(June 28-July 3,1969).
Never the need
(For understanding
And love)
Greater than now.
Hostilities renew
Within/outside
LGBTQ+ community.
Racism
Ignorance based hate
Dominates narrative.
Human rights
Blotted out words
On torn paper tossed
Into the flames
Of hostile contempt.
Trump administration
Self-righteously blames
Detention detainees
For own deaths.
Not private corporate contractors
Operational rules
Overcrowded facilities
Or political dogma.
Johana Medina Leon's dies
(HIV+ El Salvadoran transwoman)
On June 1, 2019
Paroled from ICE detention
At an El Paso hospital.
Basic medical care
Torturous journey
Long delays and denials.
Reminder
Nazi concentration camps
Given other detainees
And staff's LGBTQ+ hostilities.
Another name added
Already too long
Transgender death scroll
Regardless - ethnicity/skin colour.
ii
Months earlier
Toronto, Ontario
Canada's largest city.
Scabs are forming
Over Bruce McArthur's
Conviction and sentencing
As a serial killer.
(He's one of us
LGBTQ+.)
Earliest parole
Twenty-four years
When 91.
Killing 8 (2010-17)
Primarily marginalized South Asian
And Middle Eastern men.
Racism echoes
Haunt village's silence.
Andrew Kinsman
Prominent local AIDS activist
(And white man).
Disappears
After Toronto's Pride 2017
Sparking village's action
For the missing.
Police search
Missing persons records
Dating to 1970.
Police Chief Mark Saunders
(First non-white Police Chief)
Denies serial killer fears
Before arrest
No justifying evidence.
Any real change
From Toronto Police Service Board
And Mayor John Tory inquiries?
Doubtful
Given racial profiling history
And handling of LGBTQ+ file.
Decade of negotiations
Accepting single recommendation
Under more "liberal" councils
From 1981 bathhouse raids' judicial review.
iii
On November 20, 1999
Boston and San Francisco
Observed first
Day of Transgender Remembrance
(DoTR).
Honouring Rita Hester
Boston area
African-American transwoman.
Chest stabbed 20 times
In own apartment
On November 28, 1998.
Alive
Rushed to hospital
Only to die
From cardiac arrest.
Still unsolved.
Had Boston's LGBTQ+ community
Same emotional response
To Rita Hester's death
As for Matthew Shepard's.
(Gay white man
Brutally beaten tortured
And left to die
On October 6,1998.
(Before succumbing
To his injuries
October 12,1998.)
Would we
Be observing DoTR?
Want to say no.
But remembered
Toronto's gay village
Seven years non-response
To McArthur's murderous way.
***
Date selected
Close to Rita Hester's death
Avoiding conflict
With American Thanksgiving.
Fourth Thursday
In November.
Hence
November 20th
For DoTR.
iv
Gwendolyn Ann Smith
Early San Francisco transgender
Digital activist and archivist.
Noticed Massachusetts' murdered
African-American transwomen
Becoming forgotten and unmourned
By own community.
As news cycle moves
To the next story
If covered at all.
When covered
Lack of dignity and respect
With proper pronouns
And systemic discrimination
Part of daily life.
Like the Washington Post's
Reporting on Tyra Hunter
Who died August 1995.
After first responders
And ER doctor
Withdraw medical treatment
Being pre-op transgender.
Or CNN’s post
LGBT Rights Milestones Fast Fact
Charitably calling it
Accidently transphobic.
Ignoring transcommunity
Beyond Renee Richards mention
(Mid-1970s transwoman tennis pro).
As if
Stonewall Riots
Only gay (men) revolt.
And not
A LGBTQ+ effort.
One wonders
Is CNN appeasing
Transphobic viewers?
v
United States
Believing the myth
LGBTQ+ vanguard leader.
First LGBTQ+ riot
Cooper Do-nuts
(Los Angeles: May 1959)
And 7 years later
Compton's Cafeteria
(San Francisco: August 1966).
Overzealous police
Morality enforcing
First open opposition
From local LGBTQ+.
Previously
Turning the other cheek
To harassment.
Exploding
With Stonewall Riots
Six fate filled days.
History tells us
American LGBTQ+a
Fighting an uphill battle.
Other countries reach
LGBTQ+ rights milestones
Years and decades ahead
Of the United States.
Republican controlled
State legislatures
Pass draconian laws
Against its LGBTQ+ citizens.
Legal discrimination
Like removing medical definition
(Gender dysphoria)
From public record.
Never mind
Trump administration
Systematically stripping
Federal LGBTQ+ protections
Special target: transpeople.
Ironically Trump boasts:
"...Has done the most
As US president
To protect the LGBTQ+..."
Removing federal protections
From previous administrations
Like forcing military personnel
Into a difficult decision.
Remain hidden
In the closet
Serving their country.
Or leave
And transition.
Yup totally supportive.
vi
When celebrating
This historic anniversary
Please take a moment
Of silence.
Honouring those deaths
Never reported or recorded
By homophobia/transphobia
Around the world.
Many of you
Struggle with dæmons
Of pain and sorrow.
From society's rejection
Of who we are
Family members lovers friends
And neighbours.
We live
New age of demagogues
And autocratic dictators
Whose rhetoric been silent
Since mid-1950s
When McCarthyism died.
Our very existence
Mortal threat
To national morals
And survival.
So they claim
No evidence
Beyond religious/personal beliefs.
Before you go
Wherever you disappear
For the night/weekend
Remember this:
Battle for true acceptance
Never ends
Until the last person dies..
Know that
You're loved
For who you are.
Therisa © 2019
Author's note: In writing this poem, I had my eyes opened to the horrific racism that lays
hidden, just behind the surface of the LGBTQ+ community. Am not naive to think that
racism doesn't exist. All I have to do, is turn on the TV news, and watch it unfold before
my very eye. I hope this poem, will help to reduce this. Even if, it's a single person. I would
consider it, a huge victory.
Author's note: In writing this poem, I had my eyes opened to the horrific racism that lays
hidden, just behind the surface of the LGBTQ+ community. Am not naive to think that
racism doesn't exist. All I have to do, is turn on the TV news, and watch it unfold before
my very eye. I hope this poem, will help to reduce this. Even if, it's a single person. I would
consider it, a huge victory.
18 comments:
What a complex and disturbing history. And what a mighty undertaking, to record it in verse. It must have been very difficult to write – in many ways. May it have the effect you desire!
This is so important, and heart wrenching. The history is maddeningly pervasive and the short but multiple stanzas make it feel like a heart beat and also a staccato journalistic tempo the truth just keeps coming, but I do enjoy the addition of the last stanza, it is like you have opened a Pandora’s box and all the ugly truth comes out in the world, only to be followed with grace of hope, equally true, that we are loved, the proof in existence of the poem itself, we are not forgotten, the truth dies if the box isn’t opened. Therisa, SO well done. THANK YOU. I know it was difficult to write and I have felt your tears, thank you my friend. LONA. P.S. posting a link to my local support group’s page.
This is an epic, eye-opening poem that documents a horrifying history of discrimination against a vulnerable community. It deserves a wide audience. You list a heartbreaking sequence of names, each one a painful story. The ending reminds those who might otherwise doubt it that they are seen and loved, a basic need every living creature deserves. Along with being valued, supported and protected. So well done, Therisa.
The staccato line breaks felt like knife cuts. I remember arguing (with another Latino no less - how's that for cognitive dissonance?) as he insisted this administration would be fair towards the LGBTQ+ community and there was nothing to worry about.
Until marginalized groups stop picking apart their own and start building bridges with other marginalized group El Pendejo Anaranjado and his sycophants in Congress are going to try to get away with even worse crap. And more people will die.
This is a powerful write. So many details of history and individuals that we need to be made aware of. We all need to be accepted and loved for who we are. ALL of us, not only those a certain administration deems worthy of love. Very important on this 50th anniversary of Stonewall. It would be good if you could do a reading somewhere, Therisa.
One horror after another like school shootings. I fear people are going numb to it. What a huge and mean step back Trumps have dragged us to. Poets keep telling the truth.
I love that perfect closing... the way your poem reminds us that when so much of the world hates, those of us who know better must remember to love as much as we can (especially when it comes to ourselves). We must continue to love (and never forget our history).
The history is so filled with all those senseless losses, and though I think the general public actually getting more and more accepting, they are willing to look the other way if their own wallets are laced with tax cuts...
And even if there are countries far worse than the US, the concern should be the massive rollback of rights.
This is so heart wrenching. It takes a lot of courage to pour one's emotions on page.
And yet I am reading stories of new places where Pride month has taken hold, where Pride picnics are blooming where they did not bloom before, of churches opening their doors to the LGBTQ community (I go to one). All is not lost and all is not dark.
its history is filled with prejudice and violence and loss. but i think the community is slowly gaining acceptance, country by country. Over here, the Pink Dot SG event by the LGBTQ community has seen attendances increasing year after year, though there are counter protests against the event.
Still it is a uphill climb, and those against the community are certainly not to give up so easily. perhaps education is key.
Therisa, you have composed a fact-filled testament to human intolerance in Canada and the US focusing on one of the most marginalized groups we have, the LGBTQ+. The institutions of oppression saturate every step of the process, from the feet on the ground interface of police, to prosecutors, to judges, to the legislature, and to the courts at every level. It's a domino effect and the links of the chains are thick. I'm in your corner and will remain in your corner and have taught my children the same. The ONLY HOPE is our young people, who I pray will stand up and say no more of this BS and then walk the walk.
Your passion for this subject is clearly evident!
There has been headway, but still so, so far to go. Why can’t people understand?
This is a powerful poem that should open the eyes of those who were not aware of the history and the reailty of the LGBTQ community. I'm sure it is the same in the UK. I agree that it is up to young people to take on the baton.
Thanks for sharing this fine piece! See you in a couple weeks Therisa. In honor of Solli Raphael: A Smidgen of Thought
Powerful poem....Trump has a staying power that none of us (or I did not) expected, which makes continuing to write about it, so important,
This is an excellent composition of facts appropriately presented... like continuous stabs of hatred, injustice, discrimination. It is a sickening part of our society that there are still people not evolved enough to accept all differences. Thank you for pouring your frustration and your heart into this poem.
Sorry for the very late response to reading. I'm catching up!
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