It wasn’t that long ago – 4 November 2008 –
that the US had an election that galvanized
a generation of activists to change policies
in this country that would have enshrined
into law the continued marginalization of a
large group of people. I’m not talking about
who was elected president, or which political
party took the most seats in Congress: rather,
a ballot initiative in the state of California,
called Proposition 8, passed by a four-point
margin that night and successfully amended
the state’s constitution by adding language
that defined marriage as being between “one
man and one woman”.
With 5-4 ruling in Obergefell v Hodges,
justices determine right to marriage equality
is protected under constitution in decision
hailed as ‘victory of love’.
Now, not fully eight years later, the US
supreme court ruled in favor of full marriage
equality across America. And while on that
night back in 2008, as I considered the long
term consequences of California’s newly
enshrined discrimination against same-sex
couples – including the possibility that the
thousands of couples who married in the
months prior might have effectively been
“divorced” by a voting majority of their
neighbors, coworkers and families – I felt
faint and ran to the bathroom to throw up,
today I am happy for that part of my LGBT
community which has gained a well-deserved
measure of equality.
But I worry that, with full marriage equality,
much of the queer community will be left
wondering how else to engage with a society
that still wants to define who we are – and
who in our community will be left to push
for full equality for all transgender and queer
people, now that this one fight has been won.
I fear that our precious movements for social
justice and all the remarkable advancements
we have made are now vulnerable to being
taken over by monied people and institutions,
and that those of us for whom same-sex
marriage rights brings no equality will be
slowly erased from our movement and our
history.
The unexpected shock of a marriage equality
loss in California in 2008 – a state that I, like
many others, ignorantly deemed “too liberal”
to actually pass such a measure – brought
millions of people together to focus on
marriage equality – crystallizing a previously
fractured LGBT rights movement that had
seemed to have lost its way politically. The
purpose of the movement was to educate and
promote the equality of all people.
Transgender folks have been part of the push
for LGBT equality from the beginning,
and we’ve spoken with loud and intelligent
voices, and have found political and personal
success and advancement all over the world.
We fought police discrimination during the
riots of Compton Cafeteria in San Francisco
in 1966, the Stonewall Inn in 1969 and the
White Night in San Francisco in 1979. We
have been inspired by leaders from Sylvia
Rivera and Miss Major, and from Janet
Mock to Laverne Cox. We have created
political organizations for ourselves, like the
Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries
(Star) to Sylvia Rivera Law Project and
Black & Pink.
But despite our successes and our participation
in the struggle for LGBT equality, there are
still queer and trans folks who struggle every
single day for the right to define themselves,
to access gender-appropriate healthcare and
to live without harassment by other people,
the police or the government. Many queer
and trans people live – and lived – in our
prison and jails, in our homeless shelters, in
run-down houses and apartment buildings,
and on the corners of every major city.
Marriage equality doesn’t help them; and the
potential loss of momentum for trans/queer
rights after this win could well hurt them.
I had the extraordinary honor to come out
a trans woman on 22 August 2013, the day
after a military judge sentenced me to 35
years in prison. Though not present myself,
my attorney at the time,
David Coombs – without
giving the Today show staff
any notice until several
minutes beforehand – read
a statement from me in
which I asked that they
announce to the world that
I am a trans woman, refer to
me with female pronouns
and use my name, Chelsea.
I also announced my intent
to seek gender-confirming
healthcare treatment while
in prison.
For me, this was an
incredibly empowering
moment: nobody can
control or define our
identities unless we let them, and so I chose
to come out and to define myself – nothing
more. In the two years since, I am always
awestruck and inspired by the queer and
trans kids out there all over the world who
reach out to me and send letters from very
real places like Noblesville, Indiana, Arklow,
Ireland and Abeokuta, Nigeria.
Politicians begin to weigh in on the supreme
court’s ruling in Obergefell v Hodges, with
Republicans notably expressing far more
divisive opinions.
We do have to, as a movement, give hope
to these kids, and especially young trans
youth like Leelah Alcorn, who committed
suicide last year after leaving a devastating
indictment of the world that she experienced,
or Islan Nettles, who was murdered on the
streets of New York in 2013. It’s hope that
my younger self, who, like many trans/
queer kids, struggled to survive while living
homeless in Chicago in 2006, could’ve used.
We need to send a powerful message to the
world in a unified voice: that we can fight
for social justice for everyone, everywhere
and change the world, not just get married.
We can continue to build our communities
and address the root causes of queer and
trans poverty and deaths. We can work to get
queer and trans people out of the prisons and
jails and off the streets, and to improve our
access to housing, education, employment
and gender-confirming healthcare.
As Harvey Milk – the first openly gay
politician in America who was assassinated
in 1978 – said after getting letters from kids:
“We gotta give ’em hope.” We can do all of
these things, but only if today is just the first
of many victories for LGBT rights. My name
is Chelsea Manning, I am a trans woman and
I am here to recruit you to the next stage in
the equality movement. Join me.
This article was published by the Guardian
Newspaper on June 26, 2015
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