Trans Day of Remembrance
Dear friends,
November 20 is the transgender day of remembrance, a day of commemoration begun in 1999 by trans activist Gwendolyn Ann Smith as vigil to commemorate trans lives lost to violence – particularly trans women of color, the most frequent targets of transphobic violence. In the years since, it has expanded further into a dual day of remembrance and resilience: to remember the lost, certainly, but also to honor the life, spirit, and contributions of the living trans community, too, through art, music and poetry.
When Fr. Graeme Napier, the Rector of St. John’s in the Village, spoke with me about a Trans Day of Remembrance concert, I was both excited and concerned. Excited because it’s meaningful to see church and clergy actively supporting the queer/trans community and concerned because the representation of trans voices in classical and liturgical music is still painfully limited. Ideally, the commemoration of a marginalized community should engage and represent that community directly, or else run the risk of performative breast-beating that alienates the very people it seeks to uplift. Further, the idea of a traditional requiem memorializing the marginalized dead feels fraught, as there is long history of society only valuing disenfranchised communities after they’ve been victimized in some way.
As I thought about it and spoke with the members of TRANScend about the concert, I realized that we had a unique opportunity: we could dutifully put together something from existing repertoire, or we could break from tradition and make something new. We could make our own requiem – living, breathing art written by and for trans voices. And, rather than feeling like outsiders in someone else’s space, singing someone else’s music, we could actively collaborate with our cis allies to create an aesthetic experience that is genuinely ours.
The result is a gnostic requiem, with text adapted from Aleister Crowley’s Liber XV and composed in collaboration with the singers of TRANScend, will be paired with an art installation at St. John’s by visual artist Randy Polumbo. The requiem, in oratorio form, will be performed alongside an installation of 14 panels, replacing the traditional stations of the cross with commemorative art pieces honoring the lives of trans artists — those with us and those that we’ve lost.
At this point in human history, so much has been said and done with art and music that it’s rare to be the ‘first’ at something, but what we’ve created is just that: New art music in the classical tradition by a trans composer, sung by trans voices, paired with visual art that directly celebrates trans artists. To me, this is what the spirit of the trans day of remembrance/resilience actually means: enriching, uplifting and commemorating the lives of trans folk past…and present.