Black queer titan Samuel R. Delany in conversation

Greetings, delicious and delightful and altogether decadent queerios in your vibrant plumage, and welcome to Transgender Awareness Week (already in progress)! I have a slate of excitement, joy and loveliness awaiting you in the forthcoming fortnight, packed full of sexy and erudite business, but first we’re going to take a moment to explore the question: Why Trans Awareness Week?

The answer begins 22 years ago, after the brutal murder of Black trans woman Rita Hester in Allston, Massachusetts. Police response to her murder was shamefully inadequate, as you might imagine. Her death was written off with only the most cursory investigation, prompting a candlelight vigil in which the trans community of Boston marched from the bar where she was last seen alive to the city’s police station, shouting Rita’s name and also that of Chanelle Pickett, whose murder had been accorded a similar level of police attention a few years before. 

Californian community organizer Gwen Smith started the first-ever Transgender Day of Remembrance, observed on Nov. 20, in response; #TransAwarenessWeek grew out of that initiative, as trans people and our allies took note that we all needed the day to grieve the murders of our trans siblings, and that we also need more trans-specific events. Which brings us to…

Transgender Awareness Week

For Transgender Awareness Week your options for observance and enjoyment are nearly limitless, but of course your friendly neighbourhood culture nerd has some suggestions! On Nov. 18 you can check out Trans Monologues performed at the University of Wisconsin; X University in Toronto is offering professional development sessions on how to be trans-inclusive as a people leader (the sessions are being offered by actual trans people—very exciting); you can watch Janet Mock talk about inclusion and allyship for a truly enriching hour or Emmy award-winning actor Scott Turner Schofield’s TEDx talk about gender or Neelu Bhuman’s absolutely fucking wild trans power hour, Transfinite. There’s more, but go explore! Use #transawarenessweek on your favourite social media platforms for other options!

Wildness

This is a true gem, and it’s streaming for free until the end of November thanks to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Wildness is a 2012 film by MacArthur Genius grant recipient Wu Tsang that has some parallels to the Billy Tipton doc No Ordinary Man: it chops and screws history, while recognizing the act of re-creation in the present. Wildness centres on the community and culture of the Latinx queer bar The Silver Platter and how generations and gentrification have disrupted and changed the very things that drew a wide cross-section of people to the bar in the first place. Truly gorgeous, truly thought-provoking, very Octavia Butler: “All that you touch you change. All that you change, changes you.”

The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals

Samuel R. Delany (!) in conversation with Tavia Nyong’o (!!) talking all about Delaney’s early, early AIDS-related novella, The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals (1985), published at a time when the link between HIV and AIDS wasn’t yet fully established. Catch them live on Nov. 18 at 6:30 p.m. ET in this co-production from Visual AIDS and the Leslie Lohman Museum for what is guaranteed to be a fascinating conversation between an elder lion of queer culture and Yale prof Nyong’o, who writes with such authority and verve about Black queer culture (grab a spoon and go yum up this piece about Little Richard).

Unprotected by Billy Porter

Now that he is finally getting his moment, Billy Porter has written a memoir, Unprotected, and it’s honestly everything you want it to be—well-written, tough and tender. There are some very difficult moments as Porter reflects on his youth and the ways he struggled in a city and a time that did not value femme boys, but it ends in this current moment of success in which Porter has not lost an iota of either talent or whimsy. I was struck especially by how much Unprotected is a story of Porter’s strategic choices and how he propelled himself forward by tooth and claw, one fabulous fingernail at a time.

Christmas at the Ranch

Attention, attention: we are getting a lesbian Christmas movie. The plot sounds familiar: a high-powered executive leaves the city to go home to the country and falls in love with a hometown girl and the simple life—but this time, they’re queers! If a hopelessly romantic formulaic Christmas movie is your kind of a seasonal treat, then this is a thing you will like! Starring Lindsay Wagner and Amanda Righetti, Christmas at the Ranch starts streaming on Trello Films on Dec. 1. Here is the trailer, which tells you everything you need to know. Fire up the mulled wine and put on your fuzzy slippers—I’ll be watching this with an edible and my eldest child, the holiday movie aficionada, as soon as it releases. (I also peeked at a screener and I will tell you it’s pretty cute, friends.) 

Trans Day Of Remembrance

Whether or not you attend a vigil, you should know: an entire website is dedicated to tracking the murders of trans people, most of which are trans women of colour (trans men are more likely to die by suicide than homicide—some vigils include them, others don’t). Hundreds of trans women worldwide are added to this database each year, and we owe it to them to remember and to work for change. No matter what certain people think, LGBTQ2S+ liberation is an all-or-nothing proposition, and regardless of your identity we are all bound together in this path to justice, not comfort.

And that, my loves, is this week’s column, a complicated one situated at the corner of joy and rage, as so many queer and trans lives are. We celebrate and we mourn, we comfort and we grieve, we take every spark of sweetness and keep it safe until we can share it, and that’s how the magic happens. May you have many sparks and much magic in the coming weeks, and may they light your heart and your way. As always, if you’re making something new and queer, email info@xtramagazine.com or DM me on Twitter with your news—I love to hear from you.