In Response to Recent Transphobic Assaults
DATE: April 10, 2022
Last night, one of our Metro D.C. DSA comrades was harassed and filmed without her consent for being a trans woman riding the Metro. We’re relieved that she eventually got to her destination safely, but we’re furious that she had to deal with this terrifying threat to her safety and we’re furious about the repeated harassment that our transgender comrades continuously experience. This was not the first transphobic attack that one of our members has reported. Over the past few weeks, transmisogyny, harassment, and violence against transgender people in D.C. has only become more and more frequent.
Last night, one of our Metro D.C. DSA comrades was harassed and filmed without her consent for being a trans woman riding the Metro. We’re relieved that she eventually got to her destination safely, but we’re furious that she had to deal with this terrifying threat to her safety and we’re furious about the repeated harassment that our transgender comrades continuously experience. This was not the first transphobic attack that one of our members has reported. Over the past few weeks, transmisogyny, harassment, and violence against transgender people in D.C. has only become more and more frequent.
This is no coincidence or isolated incident. The person who attacked our comrade echoed common conservative rhetoric that has been gaining national traction. Across the country, queer and trans people are under attack: agitational language used to villainize and criminalize trans people simply for existing; legislation in Texas, Arkansas, and Alabama to deny trans children gender-affirming care; increasing street harassment and violence against trans people across the country and at home here in the D.C. area. This is the natural culmination of a concerted effort by conservatives to try to erase trans people from our world. We all need to fight back against this deadly transphobia.
Trans liberation is inextricably linked to our collective liberation. We deserve a world where everyone can feel safe to be themselves, where trans kids can grow into trans adults, and where our transgender comrades can not just exist, but can thrive and live their fullest lives. In that same vein, we’re calling for decarceral solutions to making sure that our city and our region are safe for everyone. We are acutely aware that the same crowd responsible for inciting hate towards trans people will be the first to call for greater policing as a necessary response to incidents like these. Broken-window policing would only further exacerbate the harm experienced by incarcerated trans people. The police, who have a deep history of surveilling, beating, and incarcerating trans and queer people, will never be the answer to addressing transphobia.
It’s on all of us to combat transphobia in all its forms, to advocate for protections and gender-affirming care for trans people, and to create safe public spaces for queer and trans people. We call on the D.C. Council to protect our transgender neighbors across all facets of life: including on public transporation, in schools and workplaces, and across our healthcare system. We call on our cisgender neighbors to call out transphobia as it’s happening and to organize to build a better, safer world for our trans friends, neighbors, and loved ones.
We are horrified by this growing transphobia and will continue to organize against it.