[News/Events] [OR, USA] QSA to show ‘Transamerica’ for Transgender Day 2009
Stephanie Stevens
[11/13/09]
QSA to show ‘Transamerica’ for Transgender Day 2009
Anevay Torrez
The Advocate
The Queer Straight Alliance will observe Transgender Day of
Remembrance on Thursday with a guest speaker and a film.
The film “Transamerica” will be shown in the College Center at 3 p.m.
“Transamerica” is about a male-to-female transgender named Bree, who
is about to get her final operation that will finally make her a
woman. She receives a phone call telling her she has a son from an
encounter years ago when she was a man and instead of telling her son
Toby the truth she plans to leave him at his stepfather’s on their way
to Los Angeles.
There will also be a guest speaker from the transgender community will
speak about the transgender movement in the College Center from noon
to 1 p.m.
This day is set aside to remember those who were killed due to
anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. QSA is hosting this event in an
attempt to bring back the event back to MHCC campus after an extended
absence.
Heather Nichelle-Peres, administrative chairperson for the Student
Activities Board, said the event is “to educate students about the
transgender movement.”
Transgender Day of Remembrance started after Rita Hester, a
transgender woman who was living in the Boston area, was murdered in
November 1998.
After that, Gwendolyn Ann Smith and others formed what they called
“Remembering Our Dead” and started a vigil in San Francisco in 1999.
Friday, Nov. 20, is the anniversary day of the Eleventh International
Transgender Day of Remembrance, that serves as a way for transgender
communities and allies to raise awareness about the threat of violence
faced by gender-variant people as well as the persistence of prejudice
felt by the transgender community.