The Rainbow Times' January 2020 Issue

Trans Man and LGBTQ activist gunned down; First transgender casualty of 2020

By:Chris Gilmore TRT Reporter

As the year came to an end and the New Year began, many people of the LGBTQ+ community were celebrating and looking ahead to a fresh start while others were relieved that the family isolation inherent to the season was over. For one family in McAlester, Oklahoma, the first of the year brought despair and murder, according to police reports at the scene of the crime. Dustin James Parker, a 25-yearold Trans man—a founding member of the McAlester chapter of Oklahomans for Equality, an LGBTQ rights group—who worked for a taxicab company was fatally shot on New Year’s day. The company, Rover Taxi, was providing free rides to help people get home safely after celebrating on New Year’s Eve. As the responding police officer, Capt. Kevin Hearod, told Tulsa World online (https://bit.ly/35BjFfA), he “found a Rover electric taxi that had been hit by gunfire multiple times.”

Visibility and risks Parker was visible and outspoken about his activism and rights for LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized groups. Such visibility, others say, can bring unwanted and dangerous situations, as was the case for one Vancouver trans woman earlier this month. Julian Briggs, according to Vancouver 1130 News (https://bit.ly/2T1HbzH), told the news channel that “a man exposed himself and masturbated in front of her in broad daylight on Jan. 2.” She said she feared being targeted because of her gender presentation. Briggs told the news outlet “she feels violated, taken advantage of, and is on high alert in public now.” Last year, around the time of the Trans Day of Visibility, Miss Major Griffin- Gracy, a Stonewall veteran and an activist for trans women of color, explained how visibility could be a double-edged sword for members of the community—especially trans women of color.

“I really don’t understand why we need a Day of Visibility since for most of us, especially us black girls, we are as visible as we need to be,” said Miss Major via social media. “Our visibility is getting us killed. So, it’s not that we [trans people] need to be visible. I think the people who care about us, who are involved in our lives, and who know us; they’re the people who need to become more visible. They need to acknowledge that we exist, claim and show that they support us, and the best way to do that is to talk about us in a positive light on our day of visibility.”

With anti-transgender violence being at an all-time high, as reported by HRC’s Anti-Transgender Violence Report titled A National Epidemic: Fatal Anti-Transgender Violence in America in 2019 (https://bit.ly/37NwogB), “anti-transgender stigma and systemic discrimination heighten the vulnerability of transgender and gender non-conforming people from an early age,” according to the study. The same analysis reported that 91 percent of ...