Iowa's first Transgender Day of Remembrance a success
Last week, members of Iowa's LGBT community gathered to show support and remember loved ones lost to violence against their transgender loved ones. Gov. Chet Culver signed the proclamation (PDF) making Nov. 20 Iowa's Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Nationally recognized LGBT activist Pauline Park addressed the crowd at the capitol.
"...on this solemn occasion, our thoughts naturally turn to the daily struggle for survival that many transgendered people face across the country and around the world. I live in the Borough of Queens, and there have been three violent attacks on members of our community in the County of Queens just this year. First, there was the attack on Leslie Mora, a transgendered Latina woman assaulted as she was coming out of a gay bar in Jackson Heights only about 8 blocks from my apartment building. Then there was Carmella Etienne, a transgendered Afro-Caribbean woman who was born in Haiti, who was assaulted in St. Albans, the neighborhood in southeastern Queens where she lives. And then there was Jack Price, a gay white man who was attacked coming out of the corner store just a few blocks from his apartment; the beating he endured at the hands of two young men was so severe that there was initially some doubt as to whether he would survive. I’m happy to say that Leslie and Carmella are fully recovered and Jack is now on his way to a complete recovery. But all three continue to suffer the psychological wounds that come with such hate crimes."
