Tag Archives: trans gender

Transgender Day of Remembrance: 2021

Debbie says:

This year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance is particularly disturbing. According to Tori Cooper at Human RIghts Campaign, this year has included the largest number of trans and gender nonconforming people’s deaths by violence since statistics were first collected in 2013. Forty-six people that we know of lost their lives so far this year, and the real number is almost certainly much higher.

An equally shocking and shameful statistic to contemplate is that more anti-trans, gender suppressive bills were passed in 2021 than in any previous year.  Those laws don’t just limit what trans and NB people can do in their day-to-day lives, they also encourage and support violence against the trans community.

The only things we can do as individuals of any gender are first, to continue to support trans and NB people at risk — who, of course, are predominantly Black, Brown, and poor; and second to fight these laws everywhere, and particularly in our own states. Laws that have been passed can be repealed. People who are vulnerable can be protected.

This year, I picked my one person off the list to call out, because I thought her name was beautiful, and I can imagine her being excited to choose it and have it represent her–Zoella (Zoey) Rose Martinez.

Zoella “Zoey” Rose Martinez

Her family says:

Zoey loved hanging out with friends and spending time with her dogs. Zoey mastered makeup that accentuated her loving and caring personality. Zoey was the caretaker of her mother after her mother survived COVID but was in recovery. Zoey loved helping out around the family farm. Zoey had a beautiful spirit, she always had a smile and had only kind words to say about others. Zoey was a born leader and her peers acknowledged her as such. Her character was that she would debate endlessly for what she thought was right. She was very witty.

So I can think of her caring for her family, holding her opinions strongly, working on the family farm. She was shot and killed in Maple Valley, Washington on August 31. Her family must be reeling from the double impact of their sick mother and their lost sister.

Some year maybe we will be able to say that the numbers have gone down … ideally to zero. Until then, we remember and mourn and organize.

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Janae Marie Kroc: Gender Transition Beyond Binary

Laurie and Debbie say:

Neither of us follows powerlifting, so we hadn’t heard of Janae Marie Kroc until recently. Kroc, who was a well-known presumably male weight-lifter until she came out as trans a few weeks ago (after documenting her transition for a year), is famous for “the ‘kroc row,’ a variation on the dumbbell row  Jim Wendler explained thusly: ‘Take a weight you can row one time, then row it twenty times. Janae has performed this exercise with ~300lbs.”

Janae Marie Kroc

Unlike Caitlyn Jenner, whose transition has been a very clear binary shift to being a traditional female woman (and that’s who she is), Janae Marie Kroc is following a much more complex path:

kroc

Being a total alpha male and transgender definitely makes me unique even in the transgender community. …

Gender identity and personality tests that I have taken in an effort to figure myself out always indicate that I am both hyper-masculine and hyper-feminine. Exactly what I need to do to be at peace with myself is something I am still not 100% certain of.

Transitioning is a very difficult process and even tougher at an older age (I’m 42). … And living as a transgender woman that is honest about her situation is very difficult and can be dangerous. I am a very realistic person and I don’t think the transitioning will magically solve all of my issues without creating new challenges. Whatever path I choose there will be sacrifices to be made.

Of course, all transitions are complex and involve sacrifices (or at least hard choices), but Kroc is talking about something else, about embracing a female identity without rejecting a male identity, about living her truth as a female person who has many attitudes that we label “male” as if we knew what the words “male” and “female” even mean.

The trans community and their allies extremely familiar with people who identify as gender fluid,  people who have complex genders, and people who flatly refuse to place themselves anywhere near the binary gender spectrum. Anyone who wants to learn about gender fluidity can find many resources. The mainstream media, however, when it treats with transition at all, falls immediately into the comforting simplicities of “male or female.”

Janae Marie Kroc, as a star in her own field and a media celebrity, is in a marvelous position to force interviewers and newscasters to confront the complexity she represents.

Thanks to supergee for the pointer.