By Cameron Kerkau, Staff Reporter.
The Lecture Theater was darkened on Wednesday Nov. 18 in honor of the 26 transgender women that are known to have been murdered since last November.
According to Charin Davenport, an adjunct English instructor and transgender woman, more than half of the 26 women were misgendered in the press. This habit of misgendering and misidentifying, says Davenport, is likely the reason that there are no known murder victims that were transgender men in the past year.
Davenport believes that correctly identifying transgender people is an important part of accepting the community.
“By misgendering them, we are denying them their actual existence. We’re saying ‘No you aren’t who you thought you were, you are this person even in death.’ It’s beyond offensive, it’s demeaning, it’s dehumanizing, and it’s denying them the dignity of their own identity in life and in death,” says Davenport.
This event was held in recognition of Transgender Day of Remembrance which is typically held on Nov. 20. Inside the theater, students and faculty were given the opportunity to learn about the victims as well as the transgender community.
The Delta student group Unison was responsible for organizing this event. Unison hopes to amplify the voices of the LGBT community. They meet every Monday at 5 p.m. in A035.
“It’s not just a pity party where we talk about our problems,” says Samuel Jackson, a sophomore art and design major and Unison member. “We’re learning about the lives of our fellow LGBT members where otherwise we wouldn’t have that opportunity because a lot of LGBT spaces are hyper sexualized and Unison offers a place where we can talk to each other as people.”
Unison consists of LGBT community members as well as their allies.
“I come here to support my LGBT friends and I always have fun at the meetings,” says Shanen Ziegler, a freshman and Unison member.
Poster boards lit by candlelight welcomed the public to learn more about the lives of these women as well as facts and statistics concerning the transgender community. These poster were fashioned by Delta students in each of the three classes taught by Davenport.
Freshmen Madison Becker, graphic design major and Charlotte Ombry, agriculture major, are two such students that worked together on this assignment.
“I think that projects like these open students eyes,” says Becker.
Ombry agrees. “It pushes them to learn about things they wouldn’t have researched on their own,” she says.
One board cited the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, that included 175 respondents from Michigan. According to the board, 23 percent of Michigan respondents became homeless because of their gender identity and expression, 52 percent reported attempting suicide, 84 percent experienced harassment in the workplace and 34 percent had lost their job.
The names of the victims were read aloud over a microphone every hour as an effort to recognize the victims not only by their gender but also by their chosen name.
“Many of us go through life being misgendered and oftentimes being misnamed by those who refuse to accept us for who we are. When that kind of disregard for someone’s life extends past their life, we think that’s an atrocity. So we honor them by saying their name,” says Davenport.