HRC, Day of Remembrance and Sylvia… Or Hell Hath No Fury Like A Drag Queen Scorned!
Each year HRC co-opts some group of Trans folks for an HRC National Transgender Day of Remembrance (last year it was Mara of NCTE and other DC activists), though this year their program in DC seems to lack any visible trans presence, wonder way. At any rate, over the next few days I will post some historical and factual details of the over 25 year backroom anti-trans dealing that HRC has been culpable of. For now, given that the Trans Day of Remembrance is fast approaching, I would like to reprint an email exchange between HRC and Sylvia Rivera and other NYC activists regarding a request to have HRC endorse the Vigil and Demonstration At the Trial Of Amanda Milan’s Murderers.
This link will take you to the email response from HRC to this endorsement request.
This link is Sylvia/STAR’s response to HRC.
And this link is STAR’s Call to Action against HRC.
And another Call to Action by Sylvia and Julia.
Historical facts and documents do not lie and many of us DO REMEMBER! Finally perhaps HRC should take heed of Gwen’s statement on the Trans DOR site for the national Transgender Day of Remembrance which is summed up in George Santayana’s immortal words, “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. ” Sadly, as this blog entry and future ones will historically show, HRC cannot (or will not) remember the past.
And since I’m ranting, let us also NOT FORGET that Jean O’Leary joined the National Gay Task Force not long following her vicious attack against Sylvia Rivera and Drag Queens at the 1973 NYC CSLD Parade event. Click here for an Historical account of Jean O’Leary’s vicious attack on Sylvia and the Trans community at large.
Long Live TRANS P*O*W*E*R
4 comments
Tell it like it is Jer! The only thing these petty bureaucrats understand is having their asses nailed to the wall in public. Illegitimate power can survive almost anything, except two things: daylight and revolution!
Thanks Jeri for posting Sylvia’s e-mails and thanks for being a “keeper of the flame”. It is so important to hold the truth and speak truth to power and to set the record QUEER!
A line from my early poem “The Struggle is Our Art.”
Our songs like the mighty thunder roll
Alarming all that hides beneath the rocks
Chasing it out into the light of day
Away, Away, Away
The chorus sings against injustice.
Around the same time in NYC, as the rally, where Jean O’Leary denounced Sylvia and other drag queens O’ Leary was also involved in trying to get a gay rights bill passed. Of course Tranies, such of Sylvia, wanted to be included as a protected class. Hear what Miss O’Leary in her own words had to say about the matter. “This doesn’t work. We are never going to get this bill through city council if transvestites are included. This is not what our battle is about. It is about gay rights,not transvestites rights. We’re talking about being able to love someone of your own sex,being able to have a relationship. This is not about how we dress.”(1)
As we know the first task of the professional liberal establishment (yes the lgbt movement has them too.)or the accommodationists, know as the “respectables” is to discredit lgbtQ radicalism and create a tasteful image acceptable to non-lgbtQ sympathizers. There is alot more of research that needs to be done since we have heard that here in CT it has been stated that “we didn’t know what to call them (trans) back then.” (so the fight goes on today) Now that was in 1990-1991.
Forgotten in all of this and misplaced by these “respectables” is the fact that it was people like Sylvia, Marsha and a host of others, the queens, the nellies, the fags, the dykes, who were out and open,fighting for their lives and made it possible for the more establishment orientated g & l people to gain entrance to the system.
(1) In her own words, The Ex-Num, Jean O’Leary, “Making History: the Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945-1990. An Oral History. Compiled by Eric Marcus, Harper Collins, 1992.
Also published in “Making History, is “In Her own Words, The Drag Queen Sylvia Rivera.”
Neil Miller’s book, “Out Of The Past” Speaks about the early days of the NGLTF and how the folks began to sell people on the idea of a new gay and lesbian respectability which was an anti-activist type of gay theology harking back to the days of the homophile organizations. Bruce Voeller’s idea was to form a organization that was to be a Gay NAACP or ACLU. A place for the homophile and the reformist g & l movement to come together.
In addition to memorializing the people lost to senseless hate and violence, I would like to honor the women and men who courageously live their lives in truth everyday.
It makes me so angry that much of the hate and degredation against the GLBT community is embraced by religion!
Everyone in our community should know that there’s a documentary film soon to be released about two lesbian women who set out to fight against religious bigotry by posing as a straight couple in an evangelical church… and they have proof.
You can see Faith of the Abomination movie trailer on YouTube, or go directly to FaithoftheAbomination.com
Many Thanks T. Trist for your comment and for directing us to Faithofthe Abomination and the movie. Very powerful stuff. If you are up to posting with us you are more than welcomed to do so. Just go to blogger registration and on from there. We need more postings of this nature. We will be waiting for this film as we in Hartford have a very strong film festival twice a year. Thanks again.
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