From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laverne-cox/cece-mcdonald-survivor-and-leader_b_2175392.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices
Laverne Cox
11/26/2012
This year I spent Transgender Day of Remembrance on the set of Orange Is the New Black, an original series for Netflix in which I play Sophia Burset. A large part of me felt that I should have been at events memorializing those we have lost this year to anti-trans violence, but sometimes we have to work, and thankfully I have a job at the moment. When I have an acting job, I am infinitely grateful, because acting is my number-one passion, and acting jobs are really hard to come by. When I woke up Nov. 20, 2012, I thought about all the trans folks we have lost this year and in previous years and how so many of them didn’t get to live their dreams like I got to do that day. So many trans dreams deferred. I worked in honor of those dreams that day.
As an African-American trans woman from a working-class background, I am in a pretty high-risk category for having my dreams deferred through either discrimination or violence. When I am on set, I usually require myself to stay pretty focused on my character and her circumstances for that day, but Nov. 20 I found myself on my smartphone, reading various articles and profiles about trans people. I learned a few things I didn’t know about our history. I read about African-American trans woman Sir Lady Java‘s story and her activism in the 1960s and ’70s, and about trans man Reed Erickson‘s philanthropy starting in the early 1960s. But what moved me to tears as I sat in my trailer was CeCe McDonald’s Trans Day of Remembrance proposal.
CeCe McDonald pled guilty to second-degree manslaughter earlier this year. On June 5, 2011, she defended herself against a racist and transphobic physical attack. One of her attackers was killed in the altercation. When much relevant evidence, like her deceased attacker’s violent history, his white supremacist leanings and the fact that he had a swastika tattooed on his chest, were ruled inadmissible in pre-trial hearings, CeCe took a plea to a lesser charge to avoid 41 years in prison. She is currently serving 41 months in a Minnesota men’s facility. CeCe’s story shook me to my core, because her story could so easily be mine.
What moved me so much about CeCe’s call for more collaboration among LGBTQ communities was her vision of stepping into a role of leadership, even from a prison cell, and her courage to do so.
She writes:
Continue reading at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laverne-cox/cece-mcdonald-survivor-and-leader_b_2175392.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices
