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| Topic | Man kills himself after video of him defending his trans relationship goes viral |
| Lebronwon 08/25/19 12:51:50 AM #1: | https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/philadelphia-suicide-throws-transamory-spotlight-n1045501 When Maurice Reese Willoughby died by suicide last week, it came at the tail end of months of cyberbullying after a video emerged of him defending his girlfriend a transgender woman named Faith to a crowd of people who were hurling transphobic and homophobic comments. You f*** what? shouts the person holding the camera, in a video that racked up millions of views. Willoughby was an aspiring rapper from the Philadelphia area, and initial reports stated that he took his own life because of the bullying seen in the viral video. However his girlfriend, Faith Palmer, said on social media that he struggled with drug addiction and intentionally overdosed. For transgender activists, however, the viral video was a rare opportunity to shine a light on the harassment and violence inflicted on the cisgender (non-transgender) people who openly love transgender people. Kiara St. James, executive director of the New York Transgender Advocacy Group, said this moment is a time to teach people about the concept of transamory, which she defined as people who are attracted to and seek out relationships with transgender people. In a tweet posted Tuesday, transgender author and Pose producer Janet Mock shared the video of Willoughby being bullied and condemned his harassers. These men screaming at him are beyond fragile, standing on a shaky altar of masculinity, too insecure to do what Reese did: Unapologetically love a woman who everyone says is unworthy of love, she wrote. St. James said she has been using her platform as executive director of a trans advocacy group to draw attention to transamory, because the violence that is faced by so many transgender women is the same violence faced by those who openly love them. Over the past couple of years, especially around Trans Day of Remembrance, we talk about the number of especially black trans women who have been murdered. Oftentimes, they were murdered by someone who they were intimate with over a period of time, St. James said. One of the reasons for those types of incidents is fear from the transamorous man of being outed. Ashlee Marie Preston, a trans activist based in Los Angeles, echoed this sentiment on Twitter: When trans attracted men kill us; its out of fear that this will happen to them if they are outed. --- Not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5, not 6, not 7 ... Copied to Clipboard! |
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