IT’S A TRAVESTY!

Note: The following remarks are by Jerimarie Liesegang.  Jerimarie is the Director of Ct. TransAdvocacy Coalition and a founding member of Queers Without Borders, Hartford Ct. When the city announced that it was going to correct the problem Jerimarie chose not to give her speech. I publish it here as it is a damn good speech and shows our willingness to correct this situation. Thanks Jerimarie for your leadership on issues affecting our people and many others.

It’s a Travesty.

As one enters New York Harbor the Statue of Liberty proudly proclaims, “Give us your poor, tired, your huddled masses longing to be free.” As one approaches the front doors of the Hartford Public Library in a wheelchair you see the proclamation: “Give us your poor, your tired, your homeless, your sexual predators..and those in wheelchairs GO AROUND BACK for your are NOT Welcomed through these front doors!”

You’ve just got to love this city. If you are differently abled, if your are differently gendered, if you are an immigrant, if you are poor, if you are homeless the city simply wants NOTHING to do with you. Hartford’s Rising Star is NOT a Rising Star of Acceptance, Tolerance, and Diversity though rather a Star Struck Rising Star for the gentrified, for the rich, for the politically connected, for the able bodied. Everyone else, go find your own Rising Star for ours does not shine on you!

As a transsexual woman I am painful aware of the lack of access and daily acts of discrimination against transsexuals. Be it access to Homeless Shelters, to Bathrooms, to health care, to the many barriers society places in front of me simply because I am different and I am a minority. And for that reason I stand here in-outrage with my sisters and brothers in wheelchairs who are also discriminated against daily by a society that is at best ignorant at worse uncaring to difference!

The City of Hartford’s blindness to diversity is blatant today as we stare upon this expensive addition to our PUBLIC LIBRARY to see that it has NO accessible MAIN Entrance. Btw did I note that it is a PUBLIC library? The city supported spending $42 million dollars to renovate this Public building and provide a welcoming front entrance for all the peoples of the city. Louise Blalock and the city proudly state their desire to be WELCOMING to ALL peoples of the CITY: the poor, the youth, the homeless…Yet the truth is that they are welcoming to ALL PEOPLES UNLESS you are in a wheelchair. They spout lame excuses that it will cost us money maybe even tens of thousands of dollars and we already spent millions of dollars on aesthetics; and so we can’t spend anymore for accessibility.

And so the city is essentially saying to those in wheelchairs: “You are barred from the front entrance and you are relegated to entering via the back door! No BIG DEAL, NO BIG MATTER!”

Well we are here to say it DOES MATTER and to DEMAND that the city STOP its discriminatory and ignorant practices by denying a building work permit to make these doors accessible and therefore this Public Library WELCOMING TO ALL PEOPLES! Not 5 years from now, BUT TODAY Mr. Mayor! We demand the city sign a work order today and if they don’t take action, THE PEOPLE WILL TAKE ACTION and rectify this situation by any means necessary!

HELL NO WE WON’T GO TO THE BACK! WE REFUSE TO GO TO THE BACK OF THE BUILDING! ACT NOW OR WE WILL ACT FOR YOU.