November is Transgender Awareness Month and a number of events took place across South Florida to celebrate the trans community and raise awareness around key issues affecting transgender individuals including homelessness, unemployment and violence.
As the month comes to an end, we asked members of South Florida's transgender community to share their thoughts. Here's what they had to say:
L.J. Woolston, Homeless Liaison for LGBTQ Youth at ProjectSafe
I think certainly we need to continue to talk about what's next for trans folks— to exist and to access the same space and rights and opportunities as everyone else.
Trans youth and trans folks in general are often unable to find gainful employment and that cascades into a real plethora of problems. A lot of the young people I work with who are unable to find work are also unable to find housing. For them, survival is really the main priority, especially because of their trans identity.
These issues should be at the forefront of the LGBT movement. We may have some folks on social media who tweet or repost a post on Facebook, but at the end of the day, unfortunately, many go back to their lives, their opportunities and their safe spaces while trans people continue to really be at the bottom of the civil rights barrel.
It would be amazing for me if we can turn our attention in the LGBT community movement to trans folks and to the rights that trans folks are severely, severely lacking.
Aryah Lester, Founder of Trans Miami
As Transgender Awareness Month comes to an end, I sit and wonder how many Americans not only acknowledge it, but know such a month exists.
Most people are confused as to the particulars of a trans life. What confuses me is how a person of my own race, or my own country, could take such confusion and transform it into hate. Hate expressed through verbal attacks to bring us down, veiled micro aggressions aimed at our subconscious, looks filled with disgust and outright attacks on our personal bodies.
It comes from a lack of awareness, not of the definition or details of our lives, but of the awareness that we are just like you: human, sisters, brothers, children, nieces, cousins, nephews, mothers, fathers, siblings. We only ask to be given the same thing we all desire: the chance and opportunity to live as we would see it.
Y'señia Mina, Visual Artist
I reflect on the bitter-sweetness that this month revolves around.
The sweet : The union of my beautiful brothers and sisters arm in arm as we march along proud and fearless to fight for what is rightfully ours: the freedom to be and live without fear.
The bitter : The endless sea of flickering candles that can be seen from every corner of the world dedicated to all of my trans brothers and sisters who were murdered and who were taunted into committing suicide for solely being who they are.
We live in a world that is supposedly “progressing," but it has taken countless steps back, as we are still enduring the injustices that plague the trans community from violence, discrimination, access to health care, homelessness, unemployment, HIV, immigration and police brutality.
There is so much more that has to be done to live in a world that recognizes differences shouldn’t be shunned, but celebrated. There is a certain type of beauty that exists.The beauty of not being afraid to be who we are in a world that says that our kind of beauty is unfathomable. Each day when we step outside to be our true genuine selves, we are fighting back. Unfortunately, too many have been taken away from us too soon. They were murdered because someone didn't comprehend their type of beauty. It is our job to let their beauty and their fight live on through all of us as we continue to struggle for the freedom to bask in all our glory, without having to justify it.
