Robyn Carolyn Montague, DOA

On November 20th, the Transgender Community of the Greater St Louis regional area will be coming together to hear the ugly words. The ugly words that are names, and the date of not of their birth, but that date of their murder, those since last November 20th. The numbers are ugly in themselves, the Deustch Intstitue "Luminalis" has suggested the rate of murder for Trans individuals worldwide is roughly one every three days - the ones they know of.....

But why is it you don't care? A black gay man in Atlanta, the head of Black Pride there was recently murdered. The outrage for this previously unknown person's murder was huge, the reaction was repetitive postings on social networking sites. Yet earlier this spring I posted the murder of a Trans woman, who's murder was that by decapitation, the look of fear frozen in her face when they found her head over a mile away freom her body. Not one bit of reaction. I posted a picture of her headless body, yet again, not a word from anyone. In fact, the post that came from someone after that, was talking about going to a party, to drink and have fun.

So why don't you care? Are you so removed from the Trans Community that you fear us? We are doctors and lawyers, engineers and retail clerks. But mostly we are unemployed, representing the highest number unemployed people in the LGBT Community. Because of fear. There are those that say they are at the bottom of the 'totem pole.' But you do not see us, because we are buried in the ground underneath it. Of the hate crimes reported this past year, most was towards those being Trans. Being Trans puts us all at high risk, yet seventy-five percent of that hate was directed at Trans women of color.

The thought that our rapes and murders go unnoticed, is it because it is not seen a problem, because no one knows who these people are? Will it have to be my own brutal rape, murder and dismemberment before this form of genocide is brought to your attention? Does it take a photo of that murdered body of mine for you to understand we are being murdered at the rate of one every three days, to wake up?

Have a nice day.

Robyn Carolyn Montague