Remembering everyone killed for being who they are

Photo by Jarl Schmidt on Unsplash

Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance.

I read the lesson in church.

It was Luke 23.

It’s a heart breaking story of how Jesus was stripped naked and mocked.

Of how he said: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”.

Of how one of the two thieves he was crucified beside joined in the mockery; but how the other said:

“This man has done nothing wrong”.

And how Jesus said to that man:

“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise”.

And then Alex Clare Young, the pioneer URC minister preached an eloquent and moving sermon, which they recorded because they were leading a service with Fiona Bennett, our minister, in Cambridge.

Today is the feast of Christ the King; Alex and Fiona were queering it and transforming it into Jesus the Queen and reading bits from my “Gospel According to Jesus Queen of Heaven”….

… which I performed last night and then very briefly this morning after Sheema Kermani, the activist and theatre artist from Karachi, got in touch with me soon after 6 this morning.

She told me: “For the very first time in Karachi the transgenders have organised a protest march and I am one of the speakers”.

And she asked me if I had any suggestions for what she might say.

So I sat on the loo because I didn’t want to disturb my daughter Katie sleeping in the room next door and said these words into our WhatsApp:

“Inside us we all have a light,

And it’s maybe the very thing that we have been taught to be most ashamed of

And when you have a light, do you hide it in a closet?

No! you bring it out into the open where everyone can see it

And be glad it exists to shine in the world.”

And then these other words of Queen Jesus:

“Bless you if people persecute you for being who you are

Because it means you are bringing about change.

And bless those who persecute you too

Because hatred is the only thing they have

And it doesn’t amount to much.

And they will lose it in the end

For no matter what they say or do

They cannot stop the change that is coming

And one day we will all be free”.

And then I thought,”JC that’s not very clever of you. Not just to dictate them. So I got up, a bit reluctantly, because it was a cold morning, and copied them off my computer and sent them to Sheema…

…Who loved them, and was going to translate them into Urdu and speak them at the rally.

And so was probably speaking as during the service we were each given a slip of paper with 4 names on it.

4 trans people who have been murdered in the past year just for being who they are.

And so there was:

Apinat Plookpluem, who was 24 years old.

She’d had an argument with a married man with whom she was having an affair. He’d wanted to break off the relationship, but she’d refused because she loved him.

And then he cut her throat and left her floating face down in a pond.

And then there was Cesi de Rosas who was 36 years old and shot inside her home by armed assailants.

She was known as Mama Osa and was respected as a hard working woman for taking care of her business, Las Potras Bar in the state of Veracruz.

She was 36 years old; one year older than the average lifespan of transpeople in Latin America.

And then there was “unknown”. On this list, there are always unknowns.

She was probably the unidentified victim who was found in an isolated spot at about 8am on Tuesday 23rd November.

It was near Pune, in Maharashtra, in India.

She had been stoned to death.

And then there was Berrak. She was 22 years old from Izmir. She was stabbed during an argument in a restaurant, and asked for help before collapsing.

She died later in hospital.

And I know all this because I took my little bit of paper with me and tried to find out all I could about these people.

And may they rest in peace.

And the one thing that makes it all a little less unbearable is the knowledge that also during this day my words have been used to make this a better world.