Photos of signs from the Trans March

A brief message from the Trans/Gender Variant in Prison (TIP) Committee


The members of TIP thank and applaud the efforts of the Trans March Planning Committee and their dedication to social justice and grassroots struggle. Yet, this promise falls short in the choices of Kamala Harris and Bevan Dufty as speakers, and we would like to share our disappointment. This statement is not meant as a confrontation or as a denouncement of the work of the Trans March Planning Committee, but as a challenge for further exploration of race, class and the prison industrial complex and its impact on our communities. We respectfully shared our criticism several times over the last month, will most definitely have a representative work with the committee next year. In our opinion, Harris and Dufty do not represent nor cannot speak to issues that transfolk face. Instead, they represent the forces we struggle against:
• 65% of transwomen and others on the MTF spectrum have been imprisoned.
• 29% of transmen and others on the FTM spectrum have been imprisoned.
• 75% of transgender people in San Francisco lack full-time employment.
• Yearly anecdotal and statistical evidence gathered by Community United Against Violence shows that law enforcement personnel are responsible for a large portion of anti-transgender hate violence, abuse and profiling.

The prison industrial complex (which includes prisons, policing, surveillance and other forms of social control) looms over the heads of gender variant, transgender and gender non-conforming people. While the district attorney should be supported for her stance against the death penalty and for organizing space for DAs nationwide to resist the “Trans Panic Defense”, it is not a victory, nor is it empowering for the transgender community to have Harris here today. While it is important to hold bashers accountable, this should not negate the fact that the DA’s office and law enforcement personnel are causing a devastating impact on our community. The SF DA actively prosecutes 10-20 low income transwomen at any given time, largely for drug and other poverty-related “crimes” of survival, pushing for harsh sentences and using Three Strikes and probation revocations to send transfolk to prison for years on end. While in prison, the majority of transpeople experience sexual assault and rape because of our trans identities. Harris is in a tremendous position to push for accountability and community healing in the form of transformative justice that truly addresses the needs of our community and yet she does not.
While the recent efforts of supporting TLC’s “Transgender Economic Development Initiative” is intended to help a great deal for unemployed trans folk, is Dufty hoping his support will cover up the fact that he repeatedly votes against tenant protections and the very same people and that he is primarily funded by rich land developers? His long history of anti-working class behavior should speak loudly to all of us and should not be ignored because he is supporting and important initiative because it makes him look good. Speaking at our community's event seems a well-intentioned slap in the face of the Bay Area transgender community that is devastated by poverty and criminalization.
The invitation of Harris and Dufty to a celebration of our community gives them places of honor as allies of our community when in fact their actions demonstrate that they do not respect the real needs of the whole transgender community. While not everyone in politics is perfectly progressive, the idea that we reward them such honors as being invited to speak acts as a band-aid to the very real harms their work has inflicted upon our community. In their mission statement, the organizers express that the march will “demonstrate that the violence and discrimination directed against the transgender community will not be tolerated.” What is instead being said by the presence of these speakers is that the transgender community is narrowly-defined to those few who have not been deeply impacted by the prison industrial complex, those few who have leisure-class incomes and those few who want to be arm in arm with those who exploit and oppress us.
Further, the organizers want “to encourage more trans and gender-variant people to come,” and yet the presence of those who are a part of state-sponsored violence against our communities directly DISCOURAGES further participation by those most impacted and ignores the very real traumas that transpeople face at the hands of the prison industrial complex. We feel that these speakers are completely contradictory to the needs and voices of those who often go unheard, such a transwomen of color, prisoners, former prisoners and our family members, and those of us who survive by using street economies. This presence does not bring us as a varied and diverse community together, but furthers our marginalization.

We truly thank the organizers for their hard work. But, in the future, if we as a community want “to support one another as a community, through all of our struggles; to speak out against violence, hate, transphobia, and the oppression of any and all of us under the existing social structure,” and we believe that we all do, then we urge and encourage the organizers and those who are marching today to push themselves to recognize the impact that the prison industrial complex has had on our lives and deaths. We can move towards providing real justice in spaces that allow for such support, and necessarily in ways that do not denounce the very real traumas we encounter. We support the organizers, the marchers, and the ENTIRE community to recognize that progress is not made by demanding a seat at the oppressor’s table, but by creating a table of our own where we each have a seat. And we believe this to be representative of the original and true nature of today’s march.