Life on the Streets

Today a more thorough report of Trans deaths appeared in (of all places) right-leaning Forbes magazine. Margie and I talked about it during our coffee date. She wonders if those who attack (and even kill) Trans people are men who have been attracted to them and who cannot tolerate looking at their own failure to fit rigid gender expectations. So they kill the person they found attractive, a violent way of getting rid of the evidence of their own sexual fluidity. I think she’s onto something, though of course there’s no way to substantiate it, since most who murder Trans people are never apprehended, tried, or sentenced. I also learned from the article that the actual international day of remembrance is November 20. I suppose our memorial happened on Sunday because it was easier to get people together on a Sunday afternoon than on a Wednesday.

The photograph is of a tidy encampment of unhoused people half a block from where I live. I see their sleeping bags and tarps come and go as the police harass those who live there, chase them off (to where, I have no idea), and then they come back, and back, and back. They are two men and a woman, all sidelined by physical issues. I can see them from my window.  One has a missing foot; another limps; a third may have some invisible disability like mental illness or cancer. They recycle trash metal and glass bottles (hence the shopping cart and the array of paper bags). I sometimes take food or clothing to them, which I leave near their things. They are never around in the daytime when I leave things for them, and we have not talked to each other. They work long hours, and I’m sure the rain and cold is making their disabilities harder to bear. My favorite City Commissioner, Jo Ann Hardesty, has worked with Streetroots (the newspaper similar to the UK’s Big Issue) to develop a plan that could make their lives a little easier. I hope it passes.