Today, and indeed, every day, I remember Henry Berg-Brousseau (zichrono livrachah: May his memory be blessed and inspire a revolution of blessings) whose death last year inspired me to change my life in ways I am still learning to understand. For more on how he inspired me to come out of my gender closet, please see my coming out article. Sadly, he is not the only one I am remembering and I am not the only one grieving. The numbers of people who have died as a result of transphobia are far greater than those we are “officially” counting, just like the numbers of assaults that may lead to self-harm are fare greater than we understand. If there is anything my experience can show is that we do not know more than what people are willing to share… which is to say, what people feel safe to share. Transphobia and its rhetoric of hate, injustice and violence keeps intersex, transgender, nonbinary and gender-diverse people closeted and hiding.
On this day and every day, we need to advocate for a safer world for every person. And this begins by advocating for children. Today is also World Day of the Child. One thing I can personally state is that many children know early that they are not their assigned gender. I first learned that I was not perceived the same way as I understood myself to be when my preschool teacher asked us all to line up to go to the bathrooms, boys on one side and girls on the other. As she gently guided me away from the boys line where I had lined up, and my peers laughed at my confusion, I began to experience the shame and ridicule that would later become amplified by society on ways that almost cost me my own life. This false gender binary is a colonial lie that ignores the scientific fact that intersex people exist and that many Indigenous cultures assert that there are more than two genders, such as Judaism, which has been asserting that there are eight genders for thousands of years.
This year, misinformation and violent hate has become commonplace: social media posts horrific memes filled with inaccurate information, politicians increasingly rely on this divisive and dangerous rhetoric and governments are making the world increasingly unsafe for children and adults to live. The failure to understand the dangers of hate speech and to properly regulate it are killing and hurting a growing number of people: this impacts not only those of us who are gender-diverse, but all those around us. The bullies of the world have somehow managed to become the loudest, and instead of schools being safe places for children who are not safe at home, increasingly policies are being passed across Turtle Island (North America) that are putting them at risk. Children have rights and today is also the World Day of the Child, which asserts the rights of all children especially those who are unsafe because of their gender and gender identity.
This coming Friday night, we will be hosting a special Shabbat service which will include a kaddish where we will remember those who have died as a result of transphobia (register for a Zoom link here). But prayers are not enough. We must transform our grief into advocacy. If you are American, please consider supporting the Human Rights Campaign and if you are Canadian, please consider signing this petition and also this one. May the day come soon when all children feel safe and are able to grow up into the adults that they were created to be, and may the day come soon when human rights are not debatable.
Emerging Torah as Rabbi Nachshon emerges 