This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated November 26, 2021
Saturday, November 20 marked Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual observance honoring the memories of transgender people killed in acts of violence. Sadly, anti-transgender hate crimes and murders have increased in recent years.
With 44 violent fatalities of transgender and gender non-conforming people in the United States, 2020 had recorded more fatalities than any year prior. With nearly two months remaining in 2021, this year has already eclipsed that grim record with 48 such killings and, again, the majority of those victims have been Black or Latinx. Globally, 375 transgender people have been killed in 2021.
Four in ten transgender adults have attempted suicide. 92 percent of those did so before the age of 25. Youth from highly rejecting families are more than eight times as likely to attempt suicide than kids from more supportive families. Support from the wider community also plays a part in creating environments where transgender and gender non-conforming people can lead healthy lives without fear of psychological or physical threats.
Several years ago, few people had ever heard of Transgender Day of Remembrance. Today, most are still not aware of it. It is important that this observance gain more awareness. All of us, no matter how we identify, must be part of ensuring it is safe for everyone to live their best lives proudly.
Government plays a significant role in ensuring equality for all. In recent years, that has finally begun to address inequalities faced by transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. In the 2018 election, the New York State Senate was flipped to Democratic control. In January of 2019 — the first month with Democrats in the majority of both houses of the legislature — the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) was passed and signed into law. GENDA added gender identity and gender expression as protected classes, officially making it illegal to discriminate against transgender and gender non-conforming people and making bias crime penalties applicable to hate crimes committed on the basis of gender identity.
“I feel like I’m dealing with a Martian from Mars here.”
October 24, 2018: Then-Senator Marty Golden
On December 30, 2020, the Brooklyn Democratic Party approved a rule change which ended the requirement that candidates running for county committee seats must run as either female or male members. The primary intention of the party’s rule change was to finally allow TGNCNB (transgender, gender non-conforming and non-binary) people to run for committee seats without needing to select from a binary gender choice, neither of which they identified as.
Just one year earlier, the New York State Democratic Party passed a similar resolution stating that in district’s that elect two members of the state committee, the “one male and one female” requirement that had been in place for a century would be changed to a “people of different genders” requirement. This rule change made the state Democratic party committee more inclusive of non-binary and gender non-conforming people.
That measure had been proposed by Emilia Decaudin, a transgender Democratic State Committee member who represented Westchester at the time. She now resides in Queens and was elected last year as a Queens County Democratic Party District Leader, which still requires those running for district leader to designate whether they are female or male. Decaudin has now co-authored the Gender Inclusive Ballot Act that has been proposed in the state legislature by State Senator Zellnor Myrie of Brooklyn and Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas of Queens. This bill would strip the requirement that elected party positions be held by people of opposite sexes and instead stipulate that they be of different genders. Representation matters in all aspects of life and the Gender Inclusive Ballot Act would help foster that in our elected representation.
It was October 24, 2018 at a debate in Bay Ridge when a question arose about the city’s new law allowing transgender and gender-nonconforming people to select a non-binary option on their birth certificates to match how they identify. After then-challenger Andrew Gounardes said, “What difference does it make? Let people be,” then-Senator Marty Golden responded, “I feel like I’m dealing with a Martian from Mars here.” The belief that we should afford everyone the same opportunities was not an out-of-this-world notion then and it certainly is not now.
