*TRANS EMPOWERMENT IN SEATTLE* TICKED OFF TRANSPEOPLE WITH KNOWLEDGE*PROTEST TICKED OFF TRA**IES WITH KNIVES
JUNE 12-11PM*
JUNE13- 8:30 PM*
Egyptian Theatre 801 E Pine
MAP
An Info/ Educational Demonstration Event
Violence against a woman is hate crime against all women!
We are *WOMEN! * We're not *TRANNIES*!
We're not your *VICTIMS* of misogynistic hate!
We gather at Broadway & Pine, Seattle 30 minutes prior to the event.
Hello Everyone! For those of you who don't know or for those of you who haven't read my Facebook profile, My name is Teresa Reeves. You can see in the photograph the green button that I'm wearing. I have owned and worn this button for 30 years! On it is a butterfly that is made of women's heads and faces and there are three words:
*EVERY WOMAN COUNTS*
I have been a woman for 34 years and I believe those words with my heart and soul!
I believe that I was born to be a woman and I will be a woman for the rest of my life, I am proud to be a member of the greatest Sisterhood of all, to be a woman among women!
I knew from long before my transition how our culture and others has mistreated all who were born and raised as females. To be treated as inferior, made to be submissive and subservient, and designated as victims to male domination was of great pain to me, since i was labeled a member of dominant group and supposedly the beneficiary of male privilege. It took me some 21 years of my life to escape the chains that bound me away from uncountable male tormentors who treated me as inferior and targeted me with their hatred of all that was not manly. Most of my tormentors were straight "heterosexual" men. Some were gay. All of them hated women and took out their misogynistic anger on me. Practicing for the day when the straight men would take it out on their girlfriends or wives or when the gay men would take it out on their drag queen partners or upon their transsexual and transgender sisters whom they hold contempt for as being "traitors" to gay men because they didn't want to be men at all!.
Our popular culture has long celebrated the violent victimization of women in books and movies. We've romanticized the serial killers and serial rapists, most all of them men with their dozens or more of women victims. We made great leaps forward to even admit the common occurrence of rape, incest, child molestation and domestic violence and provision has been made for treatment centers and more responsive policing for female victims. But if you're a male victim or a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender victim, particularly of a sexual assault, usually by a male perpetrator, just where do you go? Some of the people you may turn to are homophobic and think that you asked for it for not being heterosexual and you got what you deserve! Others are misogynists who think that all women or all less than manly men deserve it. Still others are transphobic who may react in panic to the idea that there some women who are out there who used to be identified as male or who no longer want to be so identified, and some will react the same about a man who used to be female. In any case, all justify their violence toward others in the same way, particularly if the violence comes out in a sexual situation or opportunity. Those situations are the leading cause of murder of L G B T people collectively and is a even more prevalent in the murders of transsexual & transgender women.
Israel Luna"s film, "Ticked Off T......With Knives" claims to be innovative in a new genre of films that he designated as "transploitation" but it is actually good old fashioned misogyny with a twist.. All you would really have to do is substitute transsexuals or transgender victims for those of jack the Ripper, Charles Manson or Gary Ridgeway.. "Transmisogyny" is a gay establishment way to create an acceptable class of victims for the purposes of exploitation in art.-- supposedly a class of victims who are too weak, too ineffectual to fight back.
The film follows an often used formula like in the Charles Bronson 'Death Wish" series in which at the beginning of the film Bronson's character's wife, daughter or girlfriend, is beaten, raped or murdered and then the rest of the film is devoted to his rampage of vengeance! The story and lives of the victims really don't matter,only his vengeance matters!
This film follows the same premise. and if you buy the premise you'll buy a movie ticket. The victims in "Ticked off..." don't matter because they are characters created to be victimized, portrayed by or as drag queens, such grotesque imitations sf women.that some will enjoy watching their torment and torture with glee!.
So the premise is set for justifiable revenge! And to tempt moviegoers, an actual account of a transgender woman's murder was used in the promotional trailer of this film. over the objection of the dead woman's mother who saw her daughter's image and likeness being used to promote what is called a comedy! Even the image and likeness of another murdered transgender woman Gwen Araujo, murdered by 4 men in Newark California in 2002, is being used by internet marketing companies to promote their services on a profile as if she was alive and well on Facebook!
And the method of revenge is bizarre. You cannot reasonable expect to seek revenge against multiple perpetrators with knives. You have to get to close to the victim. You may be overpowered and the weapon used on you or a superior weapon like a gun may kill you! Even a successful attack is likely to get the victims blood all over you and you are more likely to cut yourself because when wet with blood, knives become slippery! And how many more times can you do this! I guess there are a certain number of people out there who will drool at the bloody revenge, but it's not ever, ever happened that way in the real world.
The people who track these kinds of numbers for the Transgender Day of Remembrance report that 160 trans people are known to have been killed since this film's debut in January 2009. But it would be very hard to attribute any of those deaths to this film. But what this film does and particularly if Luna succeeds in creating this new genre of 'transploitative' film is that it creates an atmosphere in which transsexual & transgender people in general and trans women in particular will become acceptable targets for real life violence because they are popular and acceptable targets for fictitious violence. and the stereotypical portrayal of trans people as something less than human will make violence in the street more justifiable to those who would select a victim for a hate crime.
Seattle this evening and tomorrow evening is the next stop for a film that opened in Ft. Worth Texas last Saturday June 6 and it was met with protests led by Kelli Anne Busey of Dallas Transgender Advocates and it was she who was able to reach out to us here in Seattle Washington to put together an informational educational demonstration that addresses the evil of this motion picture this weekend.. Through her efforts with Dallas Transgender Advocates and in combination with the efforts of us at Gender Identity Empowerment Coalition (Washington State) , Gender Alliance of the South Sound (Washington State),, Transhaven Missouri, Transangels.ORG Arizona and other allies, we have succeeded in this film not being selected for showing in St. Louis and at UCLA, Los Angeles with trans positive films being shown instead.
But the jury is still out in some cities where one festival organizer in Philadelphia asked us to get a sense of humor! And even some blogs by transgender women here in Seattle have taken the situation much too lightly one referring to the movie as "Ticked Off Tr*****s Gonna Git You Sucka" the other saying that "Watch out Luna, the "Tr*****s" Are Coming for You"!
So the Info/ Educational Event is tonight- Saturday and tomorrow night- Sunday
If you think that making a movie that exploits the torment and torture, the blood and suffering of trans women and using it as a comedy about a bloody rage of vengeance and creating a new genre of film with trans people as acceptable victims-- If you think this is horrible, disgusting and inhuman then JOIN US TONIGHT & TOMORROW NIGHT AS WE TAKE A STAND AGAINST HATE !
VIOLENCE AGAINST A WOMAN IS A HATE CRIME AGAINST ALL WOMEN!
WE ARE NOT "TRANNIES"! WE ARE NOT YOUR VICTIMS!
We are women and we are men just like you. We are everywhere. We are white collar professionals and blue collar laborers. We are parents and school teachers, doctors and lawyers, scientists and engineers, art, entertainers, politicians and public servants. We protect and serve as police and in the military. We are the rich and the poor, the young and the old, the middle class and the middle of the road. We are liberal and conservative, progressive and reactionary, religious and secular humanist, evolutionist and creationist. We are the homeless and the housed, the healthy and the sick, the single and the coupled We are racial minorities and of the silent majority, We are all of the above and none of the above and something in between.
We aspire to all the good things that life can bring, We have a right to live out our hopes and dreams in peace.
HUMAN RIGHTS, CIVIL RIGHTS, EQUAL RIGHTS ARE FOR EVERYONE!
HOMELESS PEOPLE INCLUDED!
NOT JUST FOR STRAIGHT WHITE MEN!
NOT JUST FOR LESBIANS,GAYS & BISEXUALS!
SAY YES TO TRANSSEXUAL, TRANSGENDER, INTERSEX & GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE!
AND TO A TRANS-INCLUSIVE EMPLOYMENT NON-DISCRIMINATION ACT (ENDA)
Thank you for reading and for your consideration
Teresa Ellen Reeves 6/12/10
(c) 2010 Teresa Ellen Reeves
TRANS EMPOWERMENT IN SEATTLE* TICKED OFF TRANSPEOPLE WITH KNOWLEDGE
