Join Transgender Health Empowerment, the DC Trans Coalition and others to commemorate the 2009 Trans Day of Remembrance with speakers and a nondenominational ceremony. Snacks will be provided. Speakers include Diego Sanchez, openly-trans legislative aide to Senator Barney Frank, and Barry Peyton, father of recently murdered Ty’lia “Na Na Boo” Mack.
Contact dctranscoalition@gmail.com if you need help getting to the event, or if you have any questions. The closest metro station is Mt. Vernon Square/7th St Conv Ctr (Green/Yellow Line).
You can read DCTC’s statement about TDOR here: http://dctranscoalition.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/our-statement-for-the-2009-trans-day-of-remembrance-2/
Also, local GLBT magazine Metro Weekly has a powerful interview with advocate Earline Budd in today’s issue. In it, she discusses some of the harsh realities faced by trans people, especially young trans women of color and sex-workers, including incarceration, family rejection and homelessness. In honor of TDOR, we hope you’ll take a look by following this link: “Trans Awakening: Earline Budd’s journey has been difficult and dangerous — and led her to bring compassion to her activism“
Trans Awakening
Earline Budd’s journey has been difficult and dangerous — and led her to bring compassion to her activism
This past Tuesday, DCTC members attended an Open House with the Metropolitan Police Department, hosted by the Mayor’s Office on GLBT Affairs, to discuss recent changes in their Special Liason Units (see here for more details on the changes to the SLUs). A large number of individuals and representatives from a variety of LGBT organizations attended, and the atmosphere of the meeting was largely antagonistic. Community members raised well-founded concerns regarding the new model for the SLUs and voiced some of their own difficulties when interacting with openly homophobic/transphobic police officers. In DCTC’s view, most of our questions were met with insufficient and vague responses, with little firm commitment to address or respond to our concerns.
We are left wondering whether replacing GLLU with a 3-day, optional training for a few dozen field officers is indeed actually an “expansion” of the GLLU (as MPD claims) or a means of decreasing what little community accountability exists within MPD. Specifically, DCTC and our allies are worried that MPD is not training their officers in how to deal with trans people. When asked how the new GLLU-model will address these problems in the larger MPD, Assistant Chief Diane Groomes (who represented MPD at the meeting) did not offer any concrete plans to address the issue of rampant harassment of trans women by MPD officers. Most community members in attendance seemed to agree that the new model of GLLU could make it more difficult to report instances of hate violence, whether perpetrated by MPD or from others.
Stay tuned for more info in our ongoing campaign to hold police accountable and decrease State-sanctioned violence against trans and gender nonconforming people in DC!
Tomorrow (Tuesday, November the 17th), the Metropolitan Police Department is hosting an open house to discuss changes in their special liaison units. DCTC has been keeping an eye on developments at MPD, as these changes are likely to effect many folks in our communities, who often must deal with police on a regular basis because of poverty, homelessness and discrimination. It’s important to be up-to-date, voice our opinions and concerns and learn how these changes might impact the work we’ve been doing to protect the human rights of trans people. (To learn more about our campaigns around policing, you can check out our website at www.dctranscoalition.org!) See below for the details of the MPD meeting. Come join us there and make your voice heard!
The Open House starts at 6:30, and DCTC’s normally-scheduled planning meeting will take place afterward. In addition to the police campaign, we’ll be talking about the upcoming Trans Day of Remembrance, ongoing efforts to make sure trans people’s rights are respected at the DC jail and more, so please join us! We’ll be meeting at 7:30pm in the Austin Center at Whitman Walker Clinic’s Elizabeth Taylor Medical Center at the corner of 14th and R Sts NW – right down the street from the MPD Open House!
From MPD via http://newsroom.dc.gov/show.aspx/agency/lgbt/section/2/release/18432:
October 27, 2009
Attend MPD’s GLLU Open House on November 17
The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) will be expanding the Gay and Lesbian Liasion Unit by training patrol officers who are interested in being part of the unit while also working their regular patrol duty. This will expand the size and scope of the unit. There will be a GLLU Open House to discuss the upcoming changes with the unit. Join Assistant Chief Diane Groomes and other leaders of the GLLU and SLU for this conversation.
Date: Tuesday November 17, 2009
Time: 6:30 pm
Location: Edna Frazier Community Room, Reeves Center, 2000 14th Street, NW, 2nd Floor.
For folks who use Facebook, we now have a Facebook page. You can become our fan and follow us at http://www.facebook.com/DCTransCoalition.
