We might have expected this: another murder of a transwoman “of color.”  That’s true for anyone who follows the continuing crescendo of hate and raises a voice against them.  It’s true for all interested journalists and columnists.  It’s so with those who organize for the International Transgender Day of Remembrance.¹

Now it’s the murder of Ciara Minaj Carter Frazier on the West Side of Chicago on Wednesday, October 3, 2018.²

Apart from this, we know she had a scanty profile on Facebook.  Unless, perhaps, you are already a friend of hers, no real information tells us about her life, her perspectives, her dreams or aspirations.  All we find are a couple of images.³

The Chicago Tribune probed into her life aspects.  It told of friends who thought her to be “a good person” who was only painting her toenails.  She may have been doing sex work, but gave money to others in need and took pride in her hair.⁴

But is this all we can know about her?  What were her beliefs, her dreams and aspirations?  What were the things that made Ciara Minaj “Ciara”?  We know nothing more than the hearsay.

It’s a maddening predicament.  We want to honor the lives of the fallen.  Without those stories, our observances in honor of our dead become hollow, mechanical; and too often sponsoring entities use these events for their own grandstanding when these observances aren’t supposed to be about the sponsors in the first place.  This grim situation underscores the need for archives, not just as an activity for venerable institutions like the University of Victoria⁵ and the Transgender Digital Archive,⁶ but for every local support group as well.

 

FILLING THE GAP

The need hits at the popular structure of support groups, for most of them consist of nothing more than a monthly discussion group led by a singular leader who may describe himself/herself/eirself as a “control freak.”  Some may break away to a local café for a late meal.  That’s as far as “support” goes, leading to little more than indoctrination and a feeble attempt to help members feel better about themselves.

But trans needs go far beyond psychological angst and political agreeableness, and indeed, many of us will always feel angst while finding ourselves at odds with the powers that be.  In such cases, support groups could never fulfill.  But there’s one thing any support group can do.  It’s what trans activist Lala Zanell told USA Today: “humanize trans lives.”⁷

We don’t do a particularly good job at humanizing lives in rigidly controlled monthly discussions.  We humanize by giving each person a voice: not to merely agree with a leader (that’s cultic) but to give opportunity for personal expression through individual stories, and making those stories accessible from time to time.  At no time are such stories needed than at the passing of a fellow transperson, whether or not death had come by violence of by natural causes.

The recording of such stories takes many forms.  Many of us have personal websites and blogs.  But most of us don’t like to write.  Some prefer to record music.  Some prefer videography of some genre or another.  Some even prefer expressions through drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, virtual/augmented reality, or any combination of media.

Support groups would serve us all well by delegating the means for these expressions to be shared.  If we must only think of support groups in terms of discussions, the breadth of discussion could be greatly expanded if we did so.  But more importantly, group members gain understanding of other members as human beings.

 

ABOUT THOSE REGISTRIES

Corresponding to these expressions, a serious need exists for these expressions to be given due diligence of care so that future generations of transpeople could learn from them, to recall the humanity of individual transpeople when one passes, and to contribute to the grist of research by historians.

It’s an idea akin to the idea advanced by novelist Robert Silverberg who described a “Registry of Souls” for the citizens of a planet in a “House of Records.”  This registry enables students to telepathically replay the stories of citizens of past centuries at various times of that planet’s history.⁸

Of course, such a registry would demand technology not now available.  But the premise itself can take many forms with technologies available now.  All that matters is that transpeople are remembered, not as those who died, but those who relished life and who sustained their lives in their transitions, gender expressions, and other contributing factors of personal growth and development.

Here’s how it can work.  Support groups may designate an archivist by either election or appointment that works under a secretary and who understands the sacredness such an archive entails.  If a group is small and not incorporated as a non-profit, the appointment could be informal or even voluntary as a group may decide.

Such an archivist would need to delegate safe space for an archive, however large or small.  Some of the larger groups like Transgender San Francisco have had or continue to have libraries of their own, though these libraries may have moved from one location to another, depending upon the stability of those in charge.  An archive could work in conjunction with such libraries and augment their importance.

The archivist needs to be known and accessible by all members who choose to contribute to the archive.  In addition the archivist must have a system of cross-referencing names and maintaining confidentiality, for there’s no guarantee that a report of a death of a transperson would be recorded in news media without deadnaming, and a group may challenge journalists concerning it.  Whenever a death is recorded, an archivist had better check the group’s records.

 

ISSUES OF PRIVACY

In which case, each member should have advance directives concerning media use.  These directives need to be organized with the same catalog number as the item being preserved by the archivist.  The item itself may include a warning sticker concerning the provisions of such directives.

It needs to be understood that not all in the trans community have the same array of needs.  Some may not want to be remembered as a transperson at all.  Their desires may defer to families or other personal reasons.  It may be enough for some to be understood only in their individual support groups and may not want their stories told to others.  For most, it may be enough to allow an archivist to submit a summary of a member’s story to news media, with or without any statement of affiliation to any organization.

These directives must work in conjunction with any member’s initial application, wherever such applications may exist.  If directives conflict with those represented in the original application, the archivist or secretary needs to discuss the discrepancy with the member for clarification.

Because not all members become public figures of any sort, a group needs to designate a spokesperson.  In a small group, this will probably fall to the group leader.  Larger groups may delegate this to another higher official.  In no case should media journalists be addressed before addressing the member’s family, broadly defined.

 

PRESERVING AGAINST AN AGE OF OPPRESSION

Perhaps the current political climate drives the importance of archiving today.  The controlling power in the United States caters to militant religious factions who have expressly declared their opposition to transpeople.⁹

It’s a new game in which the very concept of “liberty” has become skewed.  “Religious liberty” has taken the proportions of governmental establishment of a religio-political alliance to the exclusion of all others.  Religionists have been given means to freely discriminate and disregard the rights of others while any constraint leads the same to pretend they are the victims instead.¹⁰

It’s the stuff of a dark age falling upon the United States and, consequently, many other places of the world who follows the lead or North America.

This milieu will cause more transpeople to remain “underground”, where they may tightly control their associations and how many know about their trans status.  Some may restrict their activities to cross dressing parlors for their own protection.  Others may choose suicide if outed to a hostile world dominated by wrath from the pulpit.  Such a world contributes to exploitation by human traffickers in that the victims become so afraid of what a society does to them that their acquiescence to demands is virtually guaranteed.  This happens more often than people admit.  Consider the case of Mishell Rodriguez, dubbed “Miss Trans Mexico, 2018,” from near Tabasco, Mexico.  She was exploited by human traffickers and her entire family goaded into silence.  She has now disappeared.¹¹

This is what oppression looks like.

The best defense against oppression and exploitation is having a close network of people who know you and interact with you.  Archives contribute to such networks, for in the telling of stories we bind ourselves closer to one another, even in the face of great evil.

Such archives need not be broadly coordinated; and many would prefer that, if they tell their stories, they should not be included on devices connected to Internet.  They remain for the current generation to humanize what might have been reduced to statistics and for a future generation when liberty shall truly dawn after an age of darkness and dogma.

For the day will come sooner or later in which people won’t understand what the big deal is when someone admits to having gender issues.  The stories we live and the lessons they tell will become the stories people live by, and the support group can become history’s time capsules through trust.

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REFERENCES: 

Featured Image:  What light could be shed now and for the future if we recorded our stories for the world?  Altered  fragment of original: “DRs Kulturarvsprojekt” (Danmarks Radios arkiv af DRs Kulturarvsprojekt / The archive of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, Copenhagen, Danmark, April 3, 2012, Wikimedia Commons)

1. Leveque, Sophia Cecelia. TRANS/ACTIVE: A Biography of Gwendolyn Ann Smith (Library Partners Press, 2017), ISBN: 978-1-61846-044-8, p. 48.
2. Alice Yin. “Transgender woman fatally stabbed, body left behind abandoned West Side building” Chicago Sun Times (October 4, 2018, 6:52 pm) https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/woman-fatally-stabbed-body-stashed-behind-abandoned-sest-side-building-police.
3. Ciara Minaj Carter (Facebook page accessed October 6, 2018) https://www.facebook.com/ciara.frazier.
4. Hannah Leone. “Fatal stabbing in West Garfield Park: ‘They took a good person’” Chicago Tribune (October 4, 2018, accessed October 6, 2018) http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-woman-stabbed-death-west-garfield-20181004-story.html.
5. “Transgender Archives” (University of Victoria website accessed October 6, 2018) https://www.uvic.ca/transgenderarchives/.
6. “Trans History Linked” (Digital Transgender Archive website accessed October 6, 2018) https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/.
7. (n.a.) “This is how you stop violence against LGBTQ people, according to a prominent activist” USA Today (October 1, 2018) https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/10/01/how-you-stop-attacks-trans-woman-activist-explains/1439525002/.
8. Maria Legault. “Majipoor Chronicles by Robert Silverberg” (Book review July 23, 2014, accessed October 4, 2018, novel by Ace Publishing, ISBN: 978-0451464835) https://mariaklegault.com/2014/07/23/majipoor-chronicles-by-robert-silverberg/.
9. Lynnea Urania Stuart. “The Summer of Seventeen” Transpire (August 1, 2017, accessed October 6, 2018) https://lynneauraniastuart.wordpress.com/2017/08/01/the-summer-of-seventeen/.
10. Julie Moreau. “Trump administration’s religious liberty guidance a ‘license to discriminate,’ report says” NBC News (April 10, 2018, accessed October 6, 2018) https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/trump-administration-s-religious-liberty-guidance-license-discriminate-report-says-n864176.
11. Fabiola Albarrán. “They used Miss Trans as a sex slave” TabascoHoy (September 28, 2018, translated by Google October 4, 2018) http://www.tabascohoy.com/nota/454992/destrozan-sueno-de-mishell-rodriguez.