During the 30 minutes I was surfing the Internet at lunch yesterday, I read about the nearly-fatal police assault on Chad Gibson at the Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth, and the upcoming trial of for the murder of Teish Green, a Transwoman who was killed in Syracuse New York in November 2008.
It was an overload, to be hit with the intensity of the attacks upon my community. I decided to write a post about hate 
violence, but it has taken me a long time. Words seem so inadequate to express what I’m feeling; to express the tragedy that is a beautiful and brave life lost. Words will not bring them back, nor will they help heal the wounds that still run so deep – at least not my words.
But then I remembered a video made by the family members of Angie Zapata, a Transgender woman murdered in Greely, Colorado in July 2008. The video, hosted on Light A Candle For Angie, features Angie’s family and friends talking about their memories of Angie and the pain it caused them that she was gone. Its a beautiful video and you come away feeling like you know something about Angie and the person that she was. By telling her story, they truly honor her memory.
Telling the story of folks who have been victims of hate violence is also important because it humanizes us as a community. Queer and Trans people, in particular Transwomen of Color, are at a tremendous risk of hate violence. According to the Fred Martinez Project,
One of the most important ways to change this dynamic within the culture is by telling the stories that humanize the issues and transform fear and bigotry into insight and compassion.
This is what the Fred Martinez Project is working towards with the release of the film Two Spirits: Sexuality, Gender and Murder of Fred Martinez.
From the website:
Fred Martinez was nádleehí—someone who possesses a balance of masculine and feminine traits—a special gift according to his traditional Navajo culture. But his determination to express his truest identity tragically cost him his life. At age sixteen, he was one of the youngest hate-crime victims in modern history when he was murdered in Cortez, Colorado.
Two Spirits was recently screened at Frameline33 and will be showing July 16 at OutFest in Los Angeles, California. To learn more about the film and other Fred Martinez Project outreach activities, check out the website.
