Sunday, November 23, 2014

Little islands of light as we remember in darkness

Who am I?

Someone asked me to write down the answer the other day: so she could use it in the Transgender Day of Remembrance event she was organising in Oval House.

So I wrote:

"I am my daughters’ dad and my grandson’s grandma.

I’m my own father and my own mother too.

I embody a new way of being in the world”.

And it became a statement on a piece of paper beside the names.

The names in the ceremony: where we read out the names of all the trans people who’ve been murdered in the past year for being who they are.

There are two hundred and twenty three this year and beside each piece of paper was a tea light and a box of matches.
When we entered the space we found ourselves next to a group of each: and our task was to make sure that all the lights beside us were lit.

And then the electric lights were dimmed and we began to read out the the names. And the statements. And blow out the candles one by one.

Until we were in darkness.

One of my names was that of an eight year old child. They were beaten to death by their parents for being too ‘effeminate’.

Other bits of paper just said “Blow out the candle”. And that was hard to do. Because these marked the trans* women who were murdered and who had no name.

Snuffing out their light felt like an enormous crime.

And every now and again in the encroaching darkness a statement would be read out: sometimes an expression of suffering. Sometimes a message of defiance. Sometimes a message of hope.

It was very strange, somehow, to hear a perfect stranger read out mine.

And when all the lights had been put out, and all the deaths acknowledged, one by one the lights were lit again.

And there we were, surrounded by little islands of light in an ocean of darkness.


And everyone left in silence.

I saw the man who had read out my statement carefully putting it in his inner pocket. So I told him it was mine and thanked him for reading it.

He looked me very firmly in the eye. As if what i had written meant something very profound to him. And he shook me firmly by the hand. And then left without saying a word.

And I knew I should go too.

Only I couldn’t bear to leave, somehow. 

I couldn’t bear to leave all those lives behind, and the thought of what they achieved in the world.

And I thought of my own life, and how lucky i am still to have it; and began, yet again, to deal with the paranoia of the thought that I may be making myself a target and may even end up as one of those names some day.

And I thought of my family and all they, too have suffered. Suffered because of me being who I am.

Not that it’s my fault or their fault or anyone’s fault: just a function of the hatred and the prejudice and the fear we all live in..

And when I eventually got up to leave i was hobbling. My legs just so sore with all the hatred we have absorbed together.

And I wondered if there’s a candle to commemorate them. A candle to make them better.


Knowing that anyhow it matters to continue to resist. And keep trying.

Hoping that somehow we will find an end to all this pain.

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// posted by Jo Clifford @ 5:13 pm 0 Comments

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

For Transgender Day of Remembrance. A requiem for my dear sister Jean

My beautiful daughter reminds me it's Transgender Remembrance Day, and puts up a post in its honour.

There was a time when I was so involved in it; when I was working with Transforming Arts http://www.scottishtrans.org/expression/transforming-arts/ and one of the things we did was devise and perform rituals to celebrate our dead.

I loved that group and was so proud of it and think: perhaps I should bring it back, and try to get involved again...

After briefly attending the demonstration for equal marriage http://www.equalmarriage.org.uk/ outside the Scottish parliament; and walking past another important demonstration against blacklisting in the building trade; and then going back home to nurse my shockingly sore knees before going off to a Pilates class to try to make them better; and then wondering if it's ever possible to keep up with everything.

And I remember Jean.

We used to go to the same gender specialist. This involved a complicated journey to the obstetric outpatients department of the new Royal Infirmary, way out on the edge of the city, and it always used to scare me.

I always wore a skirt or a dress because I knew that was expected, and I would strain every nerve in those early days to do so.

But Jean could not.

She was overwhelmed in fear and in shame and would go dressed as a man. Feeling utterly wretched with herself. Cursing herself for cowardice.

But her distress was not listened to somehow and and the specialist decreed she "wasn't serious".

And a few years later she was found dead in her flat.

It seemed to me she was as much a victim of intolerance, prejudice and hatred as our murdered sisters and brothers.

And so I wrote this for her. And want to publish it again:


A TRIBUTE TO JEAN

I carry in my mind so many maps of my city.

There’s the A-Z, Google, and bus map, usually, but superimposed on that there’s another. Marked in black.

That’s where those teenagers laughed at me. That’s where I almost got beat up by those drunks. That’s where the man hammered on my taxi door. That’s where that man shouted abuse at me from the pub. That’s where the barman called me “sir” even though he could see I was wearing a dress.

A dull map, and a dreary one.

I prefer the one marked in white: the one with the little points of light on it. That’s where the support group met. That’s where the dance classes were. That’s where Jean held her trout party.

Many of these places feature Jean.

She loved fishing, and held parties with her partner where she could share her catch and be Jean.

And I could be Jo. And Miranda Miranda. And Annabel Annabel. 

And we could meet with her straight friends also.

Those were the first occasions in which I was able to be myself with ordinary people; and they gave me the strength to go out into the street in daylight.

It’s these simple daily acts that at the beginning can be the hardest; and Jean helped me through them.

We’d also meet regularly, her and me, in a series of wine bars, eventually settling on one in the West End which I think she favoured because it had dark alcoves where we could sit together and only with difficulty be seen.

She tended to dress  as the conventionally successful male academic she also was. I would wear the effeminately androgynous style which was as much as I then dared.

And we would talk about the agonies of electrolysis, and of hormone pills. Of the gender specialists we had seen, or were seeing (she had gone private. The NHS specialist she first got herself referred to had dismissed her as “not serious”). Of the vile managements she and I were both working under. Of the betrayals of New Labour.  Of trips to Spain. The painfully few occasions on which she could be Jean. Of the anguish with her family. Of the daughter who did not know her. And was not to be told.

Occasionally she spoke of her dream of us being able to meet in the wine bar, and not in male disguise. Not in “male drag” as she called it. But dressed as herself. Just being Jean.

But poor Jean was never really able to give herself much of a chance. She was too haunted by the fear of being seen by her neighbours. 

We usually got through a bottle of wine, and enjoyed it (though it was lunchtime), but I was naive about these things and was shocked when her distraught partner told me they had split up because Jean had such a problem with drink, and she couldn’t stop her.

I should have known. Jean would occasionally talk of the misery of being brought up male in the west of Scotland. Of how men there solved their problems with drink.

I remember her helping me with my shopping when I was ill, driving me to the supermarket with her breath stinking of alcohol. But the more I came to living as a woman, the less frequent our meetings became.

Up to then, like her, I’d seen it as a frontier it felt impossible to cross. The wire was too high. Too dangerous. Electrified. 

Looking back on that time I don’t know how I managed the crossing. I know she helped me. And I did.  And she did not. Perhaps my happiness was too painful for her to witness.

She withdrew further and further; changed her email and her phone; and finally placed herself out of my reach.

Not long ago I learnt the police had been called in to break down her door.
That she had died alone.

And then was buried under her male name.

It’s the time of year when we remember our transgendered dead. When we read out the names of those of us violently killed just for being who we are.

Her name belongs to that list, I think.

Her name, and who knows how many others killed by loneliness and shame. 

By fear and prejudice.

By the inability to become the people they really are.

I wish I could have helped her. It saddens me I could not give her the help she gave me. And was unable to give herself.

She was so kind to others: so kind to everyone but her own dear suffering self.

I know one day all this will change.

I know that one day, when one of us comes to know who we are, we will be able to openly tell the ones we love.

And they will rejoice.

They will give thanks another being has come into the world with the miraculous richness and diversity and compassion and pride that belong to us as our birthright.

Jean was born too soon for that, and never could live out her full potential either as a woman or a man. Or as an academic, or as a politician, or as a parent. 

Or as a full human being.

But in spite of her suffering she helped so many. She was a step on the way.

She did not live in vain. 

And I want to honour her name.

Jean McIntyre. 

Rest in Peace.




Jo Clifford. 29th October 2010.

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// posted by Jo Clifford @ 6:24 pm 0 Comments

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