(Updated) Sometimes it takes a serious disruption to advance a movement. Larry Kramer created ACT UP to disrupt governmental business as usual during the AIDS crisis. And Thursday night at the Creating Change conference in Denver, Los Angeles-based longtime trans leader Bamby Salcedo organized more than 100 transgender activists in a demonstration that disrupted the opening session of the annual gathering of progressive LGBT activists—a disruption that thrilled and mesmerized the 4,000 conference participants.
“It was an electric, electric moment. It just lit this ballroom on fire and surprised everyone. And it was so emotional. The whole place was screaming and cheering and chanting about Jessie Hernandez— “Jessie Presente!,” Creating Change participant Fred Karger (who took the photo above) said in a phone interview.
The evening started out with comments from National LGBTQ Task Force deputy executive director of external relations Russell Roybal and Creating Change director Sue Hyde about Hernandez, a 16-year old trans Latina who was shot to death on Jan. 26 by a Denver police officer in a car that was reportedly stolen. The Denver police chief said the shooting was “justified.”
The Task Force leaders then turned the stage over to comedienne Kate Clinton. “She got two lines in and suddenly there was a horn blast in the back. She says, ‘excuse me,” and there was a big laugh. But the horn continued and then suddenly, down both aisles came these demonstrators chanting mostly in Spanish. It was very exciting,” Karger said. “The civil disobedience was brilliant. They just completely took over the stage.”
“We demand representation on the boards and committees of these national organizations. Otherwise we’re left out in the cold,” Karger recalled Salcedo as saying. “Afterwards there was this awkwardness when everyone left the stage. Poor Kate. I’ve never seen her speechless.”
Karger was just as thrilled as the rest of the audience. “I really think this could be a turning point for the transgender community,” he said. “Bamby is a real movement leader.”
The irony is that just a few days ago, Karger, a Republican and the nation’s first openly gay candidate for president, was in St. Louis with Meghan McCain and Log Cabin Republican Executive Director Gregory T. Angelo to issue a resolution calling on Republican presidential candidates to not use anti-LGBT rhetoric in their 2016 campaigns.
“We sincerely hope that all 2016 GOP presidential candidates will adhere to the St. Louis Resolution. We will be watching closely in case any decide to attack the LGBT community just to get attention,” Karger said Wednesday, Feb. 4.
“I feel so much more at home at Creating Change. These are my people—the kids bubbling over with excitement at coming here for the first time. This is why I’m in this business. This is why I feel so terrible with my Party. This is very difficult now,” Karger says. “But I’m not changing parties. I’m still convinced I can do more from within. Democrats are doing just fine without me—but pressing for change is a little better coming from a Republican.”
Karger added, with a laugh: “I live a life of contrasts.”
(Updated) There seems to be some confusion about why Denver Mayor Hancock backed out of giving welcoming remarks. Some feel it was because of the demonstration. Others believe he backed out sooner, once he realized that his police department would be criticized by the crowd. Update: Per Task Force Communications Director Jorge Amaro, “the Mayor of Denver was present last night. He decided not to deliver his remarks.”
(Updated) Apparently US Housing and Urban Development Sec. Julian Castro also cancelled an appearance. So far the Task Force has issued no press release explaining what happened. Update: Per Amaro, Castro “had emergency dental surgery and was unable to get on an airplane.”
What many of the Creating Change conference participants may not know is that Bamby Salcedo has been fighting for trans lives and for trans people with HIV for many years, starting with a Bienestar program serving sex workers and non-English-speaking Latina immigrants. Salcedo now works with trans children at the highly regarded Los Angeles Children’s Hospital. Her life and work are featured in the documentary “Transvisible: The Bamby Salcedo Story.”
But Salcedo came to Denver burdened with the pain of too many recent trans deaths. In their annual Hate Crimes Report released last Oct. 15, the L.A. Commission on Human Relations reported that while hate crimes overall declined by 17% and fell by 41% against gay men between 2012 to 2013, hate crimes against lesbians increased significantly and hate crimes against transgender people increased by 46%.
And this past Sunday, as millions watched the Super Bowl and Katy Perry’s half-time show, Salcedo lead another demonstration to bring attention to the murder of Yazmin Vash Payne, 33, who was found with multiple stab wounds Saturday morning when fire crews responded to a report of a fire at her apartment in Van Nuys. She is the third trans woman killed in Los Angeles in the last four months and while her murdered is believed to be a case of domestic violence, a number of trans activists and allies held a vigil outside her building Sunday night to protest the continued violence against trans women.
“They’re killing us and nobody cares,” said Salcedo. “This is not an isolated incident. And it’s important that the LAPD continues to do what they’re supposed to do.”
Payne’s name is among the latest to be added to a list growing since January: on Jan. 9, Ms. Edwards was killed in Louisville, Kentucky; on Jan. 23, Lamia Beard was killed in Norfolk, Virginia; and on Jan. 23, Ty Underwood was murdered in Tyler, Texas.
And just today, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) reported yet another murder:
“the homicide of Taja Gabrielle de Jesus, a transgender woman of color, in San Francisco, California. According to local media reports, Taja Gabrielle de Jesus was discovered stabbed to death on a stairwell in San Francisco’s Bayview District on Sunday, February 1st, 2015. According to writer and blogger Monica Roberts at TransGriot, Taja Gabrielle de Jesus was a transgender woman, and a transgender woman of color, and NCAVP has confirmed this information on Ms. De Jesus’ Facebook page.”
NCAVP says they responded to the deaths of 12 transgender women of color in 2014.
“Last night as Bambay Salcado, TransLatin@ Coalition President took the microphone at Creating Change to demand that transgender lives matter, and that specifically trans latin@ lives matter, we were learning of the tragic homicide of another trans latin@, Taja Gabrielle de Jesus,” said Chai Jindasurat, Co-Director of Community Organizing and Public Advocacy at the New York City Anti Violence Project in a press release. “Four transgender women of color have been killed in less than a month and this is nothing short of an outrage, a national tragedy, and an epidemic. We all must take immediate action by supporting the leadership of transgender women of color, public awareness and respect campaigns, speaking out against this violence, and protecting transgender people from harassment and discrimination.”
“When Bamby first started speaking, I thought of Cesar Chavez,” longtime trans activist Diego Sanchez, now with PFLAG, said in a phone interview. “Tears just started coming down thinking how proud he would be seeing a seeing a trans Latina from California and Mexico doing this.”
Sanchez had spoken with Salcedo earlier and knew that she was planning a grassroots demonstration with trans people of color. But he thought she and the group would just go to the front of the room and “say something.”
“I didn’t know there would be this incredible experience of seeing 4,000 people chanting that trans lives matter,” Sanchez said. “But they stormed the stage and made two deliverable demands from the dias: one, to stope the epidemic of trans murders; and also to invest in the trans community with funding and jobs and proper seats at the table of decision-making.”
Sanchez said that he has added two workshops this morning where there have been moments of silence for Jessie Hernandez, as requested by Sue Hyde before the disruption. “What I hope to hear in the next plenary is that Jessie’s family no longer has to worry about funeral costs.”
What he hopes for now is that Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey will address the demands in her State of the Movement speech tonight.
It wouldn’t be the first time the urgency of trans people of color lives at risk is discussed at Creating Change, he noted. After Dana Turner, a trans lawyer of color was discriminated against in her hotel at a Creating Change conference in Miami Beach, then-executive director Matt Foreman quickly convened a meeting with the 10 trans activists at the conference, including Sanchez, and they hammered out what would become an anti-discrimination ordinance that subsequently became law in Miami Beach.
Sanchez hopes Carey will call for a similar convening of Task Force partners to address the demands made by Salcedo and the demonstrators and embraced by the conference of 4,000 supporters. Salcedo has not returned any phone or email messages so hopefully she is conferring with Carey.
“I am one of those trans people of color whose life is in danger on the streets,” Diego Sanchez said. “And I think Bamby Salcedo rocks!”
Just as Larry Kramer’s ACT UP brought together people from all walks of life to demand the government take action to stop people from dying of AIDS, Bamby Salcedo’s demonstration impacted and inspired that range of the LGBT community—from gay Republican Fred Karger to trans Democrat and now non-partisan PFLAG policy director Diego Sanchez—and 4,000 people of all ages and politics in between.
This could be a turning point in trans history, if action is taken beyond those ballroom doors.