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The Sounds of Silence
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On April 9, 2003, across the United States, nearly a quarter of a million high school students participated in the Day of Silence. The action is an annual event coordinated by GLSEN to protest violence, discrimination and harassment of LGBT students in K-12 schools. Nearly 1000 students in the Chicago area participated in the action. The Day of Silence was followed by a Night of Noise, the traditional breaking of the silence in which the community is invited to speak out about the need for safe schools for all students. The Night of Noise was held at the Thompson Center Plaza in Chicago. The following is a rough transcript of the remarks that I gave at that rally. I would like to spend a little time talking about the price of silence. But first let me introduce myself to those of you who may not know me. I am an out transgender activist. I am an outspoken advocate for safe schools and LGBT rights. And I am an outrageously opinionated columnist for Windy City Times, the voice of our diverse community in Chicago. So what do I know about the price of silence? Well for one thing, I wasn't always so "out." If that is all you are seeing today, it is only part of the picture... a snapshot in time. When I was growing up, I was the shyest, quietest kid around. That's the part of the picture that I remember, and it is very much a part of me today. I remember there was one summer, when I was about 4 or 5 years old, that I didn't say a word. The camp counselor told my mom that I didn't open my mouth all summer long. Oh, I knew how to be silent alright! I elevated silence to an art form. I was silent about my identity. I was silent about my gender. I was silent about who I really was... because I knew, I just knew it with all my heart, that if I broke that silence, my face would be plastered all over the National Enquirer, or the Star, or some other sleazy tabloid, in all the supermarkets throughout North America! You see, back then, the only role models I had were Christine Jorgenson and Rene Richards. They were the only people I knew who were like me... and they had their faces shown and stories told over and over again at every supermarket checkout line that I went through. It was self-defense. You come out as transgender and the world humiliates you in the tabloids. That's quite an incentive! So I was silent... and so were the other transgender people. The others must have been afraid of the same thing that I was afraid of, because I never knew that there were thousands of people like me. Tens of thousands. Maybe even hundreds of thousands... who knows? There are so many who are still silent. I thought I was all alone. The price of that silence was the loss of freedom. I gave up the freedom to be myself. I gave up the freedom to be a whole human being, a whole person. I gave up a part of my life, and the freedom to love and form friendships. As a community, the price of that silence was invisibility and exclusion. Oh we were there at the beginning of the gay rights movement. It was the transgender people who struck the first blows at Stonewall. But afterwards, we fell silent, or we were silenced. I really don't know how that all came about, but we were excluded. As the gay rights movement picked up steam in the '70s, '80s and '90s, we were invisible and excluded. And as gay rights were being fought for city by city, county by county, state by state, the transgender community was left out. We paid for our silence by exclusion, and we're still paying for it. But we're catching up because we are silent no more. We now have transgender rights in Chicago and in Cook County. And we are included in legislation that is pending in Springfield. But we are still left out of federal legislation. Our closest allies hesitate to include us in the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, or even in federal hate crimes legislation. Our silence has resulted in a long hard battle for inclusion that is still being fought on all fronts. Today was one more day of silence, but let's not allow this to be the only night of noise. For every day of silence, let there be 365 days of noise. Let there be a year of noise. Because only through noise are we made visible. And only through visibility can we achieve what is rightfully ours - the freedom to be ourselves, and inclusion in all the benefits of our society. Miranda Stevens-Miller welcomes your comments at MirandaSt1@aol.com |
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