I used to be outraged when the non-profit sector of the “LGBT” community tried to exploit the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), but after repeated attempts (1, 2, 3, 4) I have come to expect it. This year’s attempt comes from the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition’s (MTPC) TDOR page:
You too can become a Boston TDOR sponsor. You can make MTPC’s TDOR page look like a sponsored NASCAR vehicle!
As I mentioned before, the intention behind the TDOR is best summed up by its founder, Gwen Smith:
“The Transgender Day of Remembrance serves several purposes. It raises public awareness of hate crimes against transgendered people, an action that current media doesn’t perform. Day of Remembrance publicly mourns and honors the lives of our brothers and sisters who might otherwise be forgotten. Through the vigil, we express love and respect for our people in the face of national indifference and hatred. Day of Remembrance reminds non-transgender people that we are their sons, daughters, parents, friends and lovers. Day of Remembrance gives our allies a chance to step forward with us and stand in vigil, memorializing those of us who’ve died by anti-transgender violence.”
Having a “good purpose” for raising money isn’t enough of a reason for doing so. Would you have a fundraiser at:
- a loved one’s funeral?
- at a Holocaust memorial?
- at 9-11′s ground zero?
Ethan St. Pierre, nephew of hate crime victim Deborah Forte and webmaster for TransgenderDOR , said it this way:
“How would you feel about a couple of people from the local high school attending your grandmother’s wake wielding a coffee can to raise money for their baseball team?”
In a 2007 he wrote “An Open Letter to the Transgender Community” he said:
“The attempted manipulations and attempts to capitalize on the Transgender Day of Remembrance by some of our national organizations and so called leaders is nothing less than appalling and downright sickening.
The Transgender Day of Remembrance is not a place to put on your party hat, it is not a celebration of life, nor is it an opportunity for your organization to fund-raise, it should not be an event where the keynote speaker gets paid a lot of money to come and sell the latest autobiography and should not be a political event where people schmooze with their donors from a past political campaign and it most certainly should not be sponsored nor cosponsored by The Human Right’s Campaign, an organization who can’t even support us in a Federal Hate crimes bill!”
You don’t need sponsorship to hold a TDOR. You simply need people to read names, and other people to listen (if you need help having an event, read this). If your event looks like a NASCAR sponsor filled car, you’re probably doing it wrong.
- Excited
- Fascinated
- Amused
- Bored
- Sad
- Angry
Related posts:
Would pay money to literally rent a corpse, anyone know of a place that does this?
Sure – call me.
But – fair warning – you may not like the twist ending. Though I suppose it’s seasonal, a bit like the Gift of the Magi. But with only one gift recipient.
Go away Marti. No one cares about your nonsense complaints. You lost all your friends in the TG community a long time ago.
This. A lot of us have been dealing with Marti’s issues for a long time. We are sick of it. Marti, work on your issues in therapy. Don’t put your baggage on trans folk. Better yet, just go away.
I frequently see obituaries that say “in lieu of flowers, please consider a gift to X”. There is nothing wrong with this. Marty Abernathy clearly has a persecution complex. I suspect that Marty is constantly involved in numerous conflicts and feuds with friends and family.
As one of the coiners of WBT, Women Born Transsexual and as owner of the blog by the same name I get really pissed off with people who try to use the meme as a way to act superior to transgender people.
We are all in this together. There are just as many trans-folks getting murdered no matter what their feelings about surgery are.
Too many of us are condemned to sex work and the cost of surgery is a major contributing factor to many doing sex work.
If anything this si a good reason to make sure all anti-discrimination measures protect all not just post-ops.
Sure we’re all in this together that’s why as a “Transsexual Seperatist” you got cold feet when you realized some of us really want to seperate. For all your claims of not wanting to be labelled Transgender its pathetic you don’t mind it being done to women who might not of identified as transgender/ transsexual, or even want would have wanted to be associated with the LGBT. As a person that wants to be free of the LGBT and the likes of you and your superiority complex I laugh at your comment and those that support you.
We are all in this together in the sense that transgender activists visit evil and violence on WBTs and WBTs are forced to accept it. Yes, in that sense, the victimizer and the victim are “in it together.”
I prefer a different future. WBTs should be allowed their own identity and their right of self-determination. Trans activists can do whatever they want, which probably means wreaking the same kind of havoc on LGBs as they have on WBTs.
I am attending three events in the next five days, No one gets paid, no money is collected and names will be read out, No advertisers are present and any expenses for rental of space will be covered by our own kind from our own pockets if it is needed.
Stop this foolishness and simply attend whatever local group you have holding a vigil. Those raising funds for our bretheren, thank you but please do it on another day when we are more able to handle the emotion. Your help is appreciated but this is a remembrance service day, not a fund raiser event.
Take care, all of you
Denise Holliday
denisesined@ns.sympatico.ca
Denise many of us do not belong to local groups or wish to be associated with them or the LGBT. Please stop using us and the dead to push your transgender agenda crap its pretty rude and immoral.
Hee! More outrage from the trans activist outrage factory. Is fundraising for hurricane relief or tsunami relief or earthquake relief is also illegitimate? After all, there are dead people involved, so it must be just like fundraising at a funeral.
Pathetic. This just shows how dumb trans activists are. 99% of trans activism is hatred, anger, and accusation.
Dear Marti, all the proceeds from the sponsors go to the Transgender emergency Fund and the Boston Health Care for the Homeless transgender emergency fund, both help low/no income Trans people hopefully not become homeless with rental assistance, pay for medication, to a an ID with correct name gender marker, or basic needs like FOOD, so why don’t you ask before jumping to conclusion, you might be shocked to know we, MTPC are on the same side and want to help our community.
How about you ask Ethan what he thinks of you fundraising on the back of his dead aunt? I know exactly what the “funds” are for. I can follow a link. I don’t want to fundraise on the corpses of our dead, so I guess we aren’t on the same side.
There is no such thing as a TDOR that doesn’t exploit the dead or possibly violate the deceased gender identity as male or female and supplanting it with a devious Transgender one. I really feel sorry for those who walk around using Transgender as an identity forgetting the whole point of a serious transition is to become the male or female you identify as. That is where I believe the TDOR is most vicious as it acts as a perverted form of one last indignity served upon the deceased by denying their self identity as men and women and replacing it with an identity that serves only one portion of the population those who strictly identity as Transgender or wish to be LGBT attached. The Transgender movement has some explaining to do I believe that day will come sooner than later in a court of law where Transgender law will come to no longer exist.
There, there dear. How about a nice cup of tea?
Kelly it is the exact attitude your showing that points to just how fraudulent the Transgender movement really is. Its really nothing more than a few queer bullies that decided to take everyone for a ride.
It’s not my place to speak for Kelly; but I would observe that it’s a ride that went from 1% of transgender and transsexual people having nondiscrim legislation coverage to over40% of people having that coverage in local law….and100% having that coverage for both employment and housing in federal policy.
Your argument that this is a bad thing is effin crazy. Seriously – people were better off when they could be fired for being transsexual at will – and could be denied housing and mortgages?
You have a very large burden of proof. Provide it.
Yep we got all those things now try to leave the LGBT or to say you just want to be seen as just another woman. Sorry but I didn’t agree to trade my identity as a woman for an identity of being Transgender or being forcibly associated with the LGBT. No amount of housing or employment protection is worth that or loosing my freedom not to be associated with the gay community if I choose. Colleges and Universities that are teaching the Transgender B.S are about to find themselves in court. Doctors practicing Transgender healthcare, professional ethics violations and malpractice. You can’t force someone into a private incorporated groups labels then claim to be making their lives better. That crap might fly in Europe or in Canada but in America we have rights.
Gosh durn it! This is ‘Merica. If you only identify as a woman and don’t aren’t gay – how does anyone know you’re associated with those awful people? And why does what they say about themselves effect you? I’m sorry you’re homophobic – I’m not gay but love being associated with gays (other than the few ant-trans bigots, natch). But seriously – how nice of you to decide someone being able to feed their kids or stay off the streets is worthless because you don’t like some people. I’m very happy you’re not associated with me – you bring the neighborhood down.
Yep and there you go with the homophobia line of crap I suppose next you’ll accuse me of internalized transphobia what a joke. Seriously there are plenty of reasons not to like or want to be associated with the LGBT besides Homophobia. A good example would be who gave the LGBT leadership the right to claim all of us as part of the LGBT? I think your not seeing the problem of the LGBT being incorporated. So basically a corporation is telling all of us how to identify and that we’re all a part of that corporation whether we want to be or not. There is no such thing as a person born Transgender, Gay, Lesbian, or bisexual identified you either choose it or the LGBT corporations put it on you whether you like it or not. Thats pretty unAmerican its a shame your so tied up in your own personal identity and politics you think you have the right to place it on others. How 1% of an attitude you have.
Are you kidding? Very few transfolk are gainfully employed or qualify for mortgages. Who are you shilling for?
I’ll help you out. You are a brilliant, beautiful human being whose warmth and decency inspires all you meet. That was what kidding looks like.
[...] Marti Abernathey notes over at TransAdvocate: You too can become a Boston TDOR sponsor. You can make MTPC’s TDOR page look like a sponsored [...]