Risk: Queer Virtue

The Path of Queer Virtue: Risk
“In 2012, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) documented more than two thousand incident of hate violence against LGBTQ people in the United States. Transgender women were twice as likely to experience discrimination, threats, and intimidations as survivors who did no as transgender women, and transgender women of color were nearly three times as likely to experience police violence compared to white cisgender survivors.”
Transwomen of color are demanding justice against violence done against their trans-sisters. Authenticity cost three times more the lives of trans women of color. Those who hate the sin but love the sinner are moderates who are complicit when they do not challenge the threats, bullying, beatings, and other verbally disparaging words they hear. Too often hating the sin leads to hating the sinner. Why are they so impure, not good, promiscuous, unholy, and disgusting runs through the thoughts of these moderates? Indeed, when trans jokes are brought up in front of them, most tend to engage and forget that loving the person has no room for such nonsense.
Hostility and ridicule are all too commonplace for transwomen of color. The cost of living with integrity has led to brutal and tortuous murders of trans women of color. Every year there is a moment of honoring the dead transgender people called the Transgender Day of Remembrance. The last moments of transwomen live often follow the following script: (1) shot more than seven times, (2) stabbed to death and then burned, and (3) stabbed or beaten while being sodomized to death with a metal rod. Everyone in the room has tears pouring down their faces. Christians risk authentic love because right now your indirect or direct complicity in the murders and suicides of LGBT people leaves your souls stained with the blood. Like Abel, the blood of all these LGBT people cries out to God and demand change.

Below is an all too common situation that is brought up annually. On November 19, 2017, the following words were spoken:
“2017 has already seen at least 25 transgender people fatally shot or killed by other violent means just in the United States. The worldwide total is much larger. Most are people of color.
I will now read the names of a few of those precious souls. Please hold them in tender care, knowing that each name represents at least hundreds and probably thousands of others.
• Mesha Caldwell, 41, a black transgender woman from Canton, Mississippi, was found shot to death the evening of January 4.
• Sean Hake,23, a transgender man in Sharon, Pennsylvania, died after he was shot by police responding to a 911 call from his mother.
• Jamie Lee Wounded Arrow, 28, an American Indian woman who identified as transgender and two-spirit, was found dead in her apartment in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
• JoJo Striker, 23, a transgender woman, was found killed in Toledo, Ohio, on February 8.
• Tiara Richmond, also known as Keke Collier,24, a transgender woman of color, was fatally shot in Chicago on the morning of February 21.
• Chyna Gibson, 31, a Black transgender woman, was shot and killed in New Orleans on February 25.
• Ciara McElveen, 26, a transgender woman of color, was stabbed to death in New Orleans on February 27.
• Jaquarrius Holland, 18, was shot to death in Monroe, Louisiana, on February 19.
• Alphonza Watson,38, was shot and killed in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 22.
• Chay Reed,28, a transgender woman of color, was shot and killed on April 21 in Miami.
• Kenneth Bostick, 59, was found with severe injuries on a Manhattan sidewalk, he later died of his injuries.
• Sherrell Faulkner, 46, a transgender woman of color died on May 16, of injuries sustained during an attack on November 30, 2016, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
• Kenne McFadden, 27, was found in the San Antonio River on April 9. Police believe she was pushed into the river, which runs through downtown San Antonio.
• Kendra Marie Adams, 28, was found in a building that was under construction and had burns on her body on June 13.
• Ava Le’Ray Barrin, 17, was shot and killed in Athens, Georgia on June 25 during an altercation in an apartment parking lot.
• Ebony Morgan, 28, was shot multiple times in Lynchburg, Virginia, in the early morning of July 2.
• TeeTee Dangerfield, 32, a Black transgender woman, was shot and killed on July 31 in Atlanta, Georgia.
• Gwynevere River Song,26, was shot and killed in Waxahachie, Texas, on August 12.
• KiwiHerring, 30, was killed during an altercation with police on August 22 during an altercation with her neighbor.
• Kashmire Nazier Redd, 28, was fatally stabbed by his partner on September 5.
• Derricka Banner, 26, was found shot to death in Charlotte, North Carolina on September 12.
• Scout Schultz, 21, was shot and killed by Georgia Tech campus police on September 16.
• Ally Steinfeld, 17, was stabbed to death in Missouri in early September.
• Stephanie Montez, 47, was brutally murdered near Robstown, Texas.
• Candace Towns, 30, a transgender woman who was found shot to death in Georgia…”
The rest of the speech can be found on the following website: https://theresauuco.wordpress.com/tag/transgender-day-of-remembrance/
Listen to their voices cry out from the grave for a better way, a way of agape.
Reference:
Edman, Elizabeth M. (2016). Queer Virtue: What LGBTQ People Know About Life and How it Can Revitalize Christianity. Boston, MA: Beacon Press