Nothing But Darkness...

Man Contempt

I had a life that lost control
Spun out, directed, and ridiculed by males
It was my spirit they broke and stole
For any happiness I felt or freedom it entails
They bothered me and spat in my hopes
They buried my dreams
They led me to pills, rafters and ropes
They lowered each and every one of my esteems
They couldn't bear to see me smile
They shoved me in the dirt
They made me crawl an extra mile
They kept constant in all their forms of hurt
They have pushed me to one easy emotion
It all leads to one plain notion
A desire for each and every last one –
To burn and cry out on the sun
For they drove themselves to this fate
This is for everything male I hate.

– Tesía Samara/Ben Brownlee (suicide: Age 15)

Hope.  With it, people can do amazing things.  Without it, tragic things happen.

Hope is the blind faith that there is a bigger purpose, and that each of us has value.  It is the faith that each of us will be able to love, and be loved in return. It's the expectation that the elusive search for happiness and fulfillment can and will have a happy ending, and that pain, fear, anger, despair, and anguish are only temporary visitors along the way.

Hope is a uniquely human trait, and a key component to the overall spark that some might call "The Human Spirit".  For some people, it is a flame that continues to burn - leading the way through some incredibly dark and difficult times.  It is a resilient flame, weathering the darkest of times and the greatest of pressures.  Sadly, for some, it is a flame that gets extinguished far too prematurely.

Those who cannot find an ounce of  hope can see only darkness- an endless abyss of struggling and pain.  And in their despair, without hope to light their way, they may find themselves resigned to seduction at the feet of another uniquely human specter - Suicide.  

Did You Know?

• Suicide is the third leading cause of death among people 15-24
• According to a survey of the Seattle public school, GLB youth are more than twice as likely than heterosexual teens to make specific suicide plans
• GLB youth who had been harassed were more than twice as likely to make specific plans for suicide than those who had not
• Transgender youth probably have even higher risk, because they are probably even more likely to have been harassed and ostracized and are less likely to have found a support system. 
• Some studies put the percentage of openly transgendered teens who attempt suicide at nearly 50%!
• In the next 24 hours, over 1,400 teens will attempt suicide (compared with 2,800 teenage girls who will become pregnant).
• For every "successful" suicide there are anywhere between 30-50 attempts.
• GLBT youth comprise at least 30% of all successful teen suicides
• every 6 hours a Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, or Transgendered youth takes their own life

I share these numbers because I found them amazing.   And, although I dedicate this site to people and not to statistics, I think it's critical to understand the magnitude of this problem.  Our kids and our brothers and sisters are dying!  Tragedies like those described here are happening every day.  And, the only way to reduce it is to face it.  Just as the key to educating an intolerant world about who and what we are is by sharing our personal stories, so too must we put human faces and human stories to these statistics.

These deaths will not have been in vain.  Sometimes, it takes tragedy to shake the living out of lethargy.  We cannot allow these deaths to become faceless numbers - anonymous victims of fate.  These people are our kids, our parents, or families and friends.  And, they will be missed.

Disposable People

I have been moved to tears twice in the past 6 months by news of the death of people I didn't even know.  Actually, although I didn't know them personally, I must admit that I knew their struggles.  Both people were transgendered, and both eventually succumbed to the relentless pounding that life inflicts on those who share my burden.  And although my tears certainly contained the salt of sadness, they also contained the bitterness of frustration, and of anger.  There's no reason these people should have to struggle so much, and die, simply because they can't be what other's want them to be, or what others made them be.

I do not publish this page to glamorize or condone something as unspeakably tragic as suicide.  However, to ignore it or to sanitize it doesn't mean its not out there -  that it's not happening every day. Rather, I publish it to help others realize that there are options.  There is help.  There are those who care. And perhaps most importantly of all: There is Hope. 

As long as there are those of us who are dying, this page will be a work in progress.  Please feel free to pass along information on others who should be included here...

In Memoriam....

David Reimer (1965-2004)

From GenderPAC:

WINNIPEG, May 13, 2004.   David Reimer -- known to many simply as "John/Joan" committed suicide last week at the age of 38. Following a botched circumcision, Johns Hopkins gender studies specialist Dr. John Money advised them to raise him as a girl. Believing gender was learned, Money saw in the child -- one of two identical twins -- a chance to prove his theory. David was given female hormones and raised as Brenda.

The treatment was published in the medical literature as the case of "John/Joan" and cited for decades as scientific proof that gender was mutable at birth. However, the fact that David was extremely unhappy as Brenda went largely unrecognized until a follow-up study by Dr. Milton Diamond.

Despite the debunking of the case, pediatric surgeons commonly still medically assign the sex of intersex infants through surgery and hormones, before the gender identity of the child becomes apparent.

David eventually rebelled against living as female, and tried to reverse all the effects of medical feminization. He eventually married and became a stepfather to three children. His story was publicized in Rolling Stone (see below), the book "As Nature Made Him," and on Oprah.

While David was reportedly depressed over a series of unfortunate incidents -- including losing his job, separating from his wife, and the death of his brother from an overdose two years ago -- Janet Reimer, his mother, believes he would still be alive today had it not been for the experiment.

Illustrating how difficult life was, she pointed out that even at school, "They wouldn't let him use the boys' washroom or the girls'. He had to go in the back alley," adding "I think he felt he had no options. It just kept building up and building up."

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Tesia Samara/Ben Brownlee (1988-2003)

This tragic story hits painfully close to home.  Rockdale is an hour outside of Austin, where I live.  The small towns of central Texas are difficult places to be different even in the best of circumstances....

A Life Withdrawn: Transgendered Teen Never Found Acceptance in Rockdale (Austin Statesman-American 12/17/2003)

The Death of Ben Brownlee (Austin Chronicle 1/20/2004)

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Alexander John Goodrum (1960-2002)

Alexander John Goodrum was the Director of TGNet Arizona, a transgender advocacy and resource organization based in Tucson, Arizona. He had been involved as an activist in GLBT organizing and social justice issues since 1980 in Chicago, San Francisco and since 1996, in Tucson.  As an African-American, Transgender (Female-to-Male), queer-identified (bisexual), and disabled person, he had worked extensively in each of those communities. Alexander had more than 20 years experience in organizational development, grant writing and research, and community  building. He was a member of the City of Tucson GLBT Commission and an Activist/Panelist for the Funding Exchange's  OutFund for Gay and Lesbian Liberation. http://www.true-spirit.org/basics/alexander.htm http://www.planetout.com/people/columns/green/archive/20021014.html

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