Raven Drake is Street Roots’ Ambassador Program manager.
On the grassy field and adjacent hill of Irving Park, a little more than 200 people sat in the hot sun supporting the March for Trans Lives, an event led by Black trans organizers. The park was a buzz of energy, old friends and new coming together to support our BIPOC trans brothers and sisters. For me, it was a day like no other I have experienced here in Portland, or any place else I have lived.
As a proud trans woman, I spent days looking forward to attending, with plans to write an account of the events of the day. What happened on that day for me was an awakening.
After a long year of cultivating a successful professional career at Street Roots, I did not realize I had done it at the expense of a genuine connection with my community. Sitting on the hill alone in the sunshine, I could not find a person I knew, but I did desire to know them.
As the speakers each took a turn, I felt a wave of euphoric energy flood over me. I started to look around, not seeing strange faces but seeing myself reflected back time and time again. The rally cry of “Joy is our birthright” wrapped around my soul, warming it from the loneliness I have battled through for years. In that instant, I felt less alone and more at peace with myself than I ever had.
The call to the streets for the march came. One by one, we filed out in a long stream of singing, chanting and joyful people. I fell into the middle of the procession with my phone in hand, snapping pictures of the surrounding people, the signs other people held whenever we stopped.
For myself, it had a prolific effect inside. I remembered friends lost to violence, hate or the basic ignorance of people who viewed them as a danger. I remembered that I was attacked, emotionally assaulted and discriminated against over the years.
In the middle of this day, full of singing, chanting and social demonstrations, I found a desire to spend more time with other trans people because, it may sound bleak, but every transgender person learned rapidly that tomorrow is far from a guarantee in the year 2021. Over the past 20 weeks of this year, we have already lost 26 lives, more than one per week, which comes at no surprise, as 2020 was the deadliest year on record with 44 transgender deaths.
As I walked to my home, I paused to reflect on my own story. After an abusive and traumatic childhood, and years of service as a Navy corpsman with the 1st Marine Division in Iraq, to say there were scars was an understatement. I knew by the time I had turned 12 years old that I was transgender, but it still took until I was 32 before I could accept it. By the time I made it to Portland on Christmas Eve 2019, I was so beat down by the hatred and disrespect I went through back East, in Ohio and Indiana, that I came to Portland to say goodbye to my friend and end my life.
Then the magic of life happened. I stepped into Street Roots with a friend, and the love of this organization transcended all the hurt I was going through. This event would change everything for me, giving me the courage to live, to strive again to be me, finally. I got on my hormone replacement therapy medications, found a therapist, and found a life I never knew could be.
Acceptance and family became my saving graces and propelled me into a life of service for others that I never dreamed possible.
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