06/26/2015

13   Today the Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage was legal across the nation. A landmark day for freedom right? Seemingly, yes. Undoubtedly a reason for rejoice for gays and lesbians across the nation that have been barred from expressing their love through the official structure of marriage. As Ellen Degeneres tweeted, “Love won”. Unfortunately there already seems to be a discontinuity between the ruling, between its accompanying surfeit of unimpeded optimism, and the reality of the LGBTQ community at large. Although the passing of full gay marriage legalization in America might constitute a seminal point in gay history, it still represents the predominance of a structural divide that has plagued the LGBTQ world since its rise to national attention in the 1960s. What I mean to elucidate is the glaring exclusion of transgender people from this critical moment in the community’s history. I haven’t done any further research, but it seems that already, members of the LGBTQ community have voiced complaints about this crucial oversight. Trans artists duo Dark Matter represents just one of the many variously pessimistic takes on the otherwise well-received news, explaining on their Facebook that, “While cis/white people are getting married, Black and Latina trans women are getting murdered.” Cis-gender being the majority of humans who identify with the gender assigned to them at birth, transpeople have been forced to take an out-group, in-group view on society where they are the ones dangerously vulnerable to majority rule responsible for so much uninhibited persecution. Despite popular belief to the contrary, transgender violence continues to embroil America in the hatred of its past transgressions. At least 9 transgender women have been murdered so far in 2015, and in 2014, all but one of the 13 transgender women killed were women of color. In this undoubtedly hostile environment, transgender women, especially women of color, often have to adopt a callousness as to help withstand the brunt impact of the world’s weight. To help ease the burden from the trans community, official legislation directly focused on the liberation of trans people needs to be enacted rapidly, especially in the wake of such momentous events as Supreme Court’s ruling today. Let’s keep the ball rolling people!!