The glass pillar at the front of Metropolitan Community Church Illiana filled slowly with small cups of pink, blue, purple and white sand until it was full and two smaller glass vessels were placed on either side of it until they, too, began to fill with sand.
The result was a colorful sand sculpture and a visual representation of the more than 380 transgender people killed around the globe from October 2021 through the end of September this year.
One by one, church members and participants in the Monday night vigil for the NWI Transgender Day of Remembrance read the names of those who have died, organized alphabetically by country. A slide accompanied the recitation of each name — or as was the case many times, a name unknown — listing the victim’s city, age and how they died.
Tortured. Beaten. Drowned. Strangled. Shot. Stabbed. Dismembered. Stoned.
The annual memorial service, now held around the globe, started in 1999, one year after Rita Hester, a Black trans woman, was stabbed to death in her apartment in a Boston neighborhood on Nov. 28. A cup of sand in her memory was the first to go in the pillar.
The service at the Portage church came nine days after a shooter killed five people and injured 17 more at Club Q, an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as school districts in Northwest Indiana remove rainbow flags from classrooms, and as a fundraising drag show at the Memorial Opera House drew protesters.
The instances, of varying magnitudes, are upsetting because they are based on a lack of knowledge and on fear, said Kathy Bubala of Chesterton, a charter member of the church, which celebrates its 20th anniversary on Dec. 21 and started in a basement.
“It’s upsetting to hear all that because I know when we first started this church, in a church building, people were afraid to show their faces and now I’m married. I’m not ashamed and it’s vital for people to know that,” said Bubala.
The LGBTQ community is seeing the “militarization of hate for political purposes,” said the Rev. Michael Cooper, who leads the Portage church, adding that trans murders and domestic violence have bloomed into something more sinister in recent years.
“Now it’s mass shootings in nightclubs that are central to our community, so that’s an empowerment of really the worst part of our society,” he said.
Wendy Bruce of Portage, who came out as trans four years ago, said she’s become more attuned to “situational awareness,” such as smart aleck comments, though she knows there are extremists in this area.
“It is under the radar and we’re hoping to bring it up to focus over the radar, if you will, and trans people go through a lot,” she said.
Many of those participating in the vigil said the number of trans deaths was likely much higher because so many countries, including Russia, don’t report them or don’t have a free media that has the ability to do so.
“So many in the trans community have been murdered. A lot of times it doesn’t get reported,” Cooper said. Many times, he added, a victim has been disowned by their family or a memorial service was held under their previous gender and identity.
The Metropolitan Community Church here began holding the service around nine years ago, using different visual symbols to represent the trans lives lost, including seashells and artificial butterflies, though this is the third year the church has used the sand.
“It’s one of the most powerful presentations that we’ve done,” Cooper said, adding the glass vessels will remain on the church’s altar for Advent. “It creates something very beautiful.”
Not all the cups of sand were specifically for victims of trans violence. Cooper emptied five cups for the victims of the Club Q shooting after providing their names and details about their lives.
Ezra Burke, secretary of LGBTQ Outreach of Porter County, emptied cups in memory of two young trans people he knows who died by suicide and asked attendees to remember other trans people who have done so.
A lot of times, the Valparaiso resident said, their tragedy becomes a silent one, like many of those commemorated during the service.
“It’s the part of trans remembrance day that’s always hardest for me,” Burke said, adding suicide is an act of violence people do to themselves.
“They’re not included in the count that we do each year, who’ve experienced violence in the community, because they died by their own hands.”
Lexie Schmidt of Hammond told the service’s attendees that she wasn’t sure what she was going to say when Cooper asked her to participate but the shooting at Club Q gave her direction for her remarks.
“I don’t know when I’ll stop being angry. Maybe when my siblings stop being killed. Maybe then I will heal,” she said, adding that she will not turn to hatred. “I choose to live. Don’t lower yourself to the level of the people who wish to do us harm.”
After the recitation of the victims, Nikki Lynch of Schererville took to the front of the room for closing remarks, noting that there were many names that were not spoken during the service and emptying the remaining cups of sand for the victims no one knows about.
“While it may not stop the knives, guns and fists that will lash out this year, it shows unity and pride,” she said. “I know it is not easy outside these safe spaces.”
alavalley@chicagotribune.com
