Death While Trans: Miss-Gendering, "Dress Up" & Casual "Family" Violence

TL & Ki'tay (L to R) embraced during a spontaneous dance in a park in San Diego. TL, hides behind Ki'tay a bit & Ki'tay looks directly at the camera smiling with his whole face. TL has an open smile. The sun reflects off of their melanin-infused skin.

TW/CW: Discussion of death & violence against a transman after his physical passing. This is a relatively short post about how this world treated my partner, Ki'tay D. Davdson, upon his transition herefrom.

When you are trans, you cannot escape violence in life or death.
There is no rest.
No peace.
No justice.
No dignity.
When you are trans, you must be at the ready and ever prepared to combat violence--dead or alive.

Particularly striking are the solemn realities of life and death for transfolk of color, transfolk with disabilities, transfolk living with little or no income; and transfolk at any and all of these intersections. For these individuals, there is no fanfare, Vanity Fair, life fair, or death fair. The world calls you what it wants and treats you how it will--dead or alive.

This is just one small part of Ki’tay D. Davidson’s life story. Ironically, it begins a day after his transition from this physical world. Despite his constant warmth & endless love in life, the cold hatred of this world could not help but try to envelop him in death.

These are partial transcripts from phone calls that took place on December 3, 2014:
 . . . 
Los Angeles County Coroner Investigator: Well, I just spoke with one of my lieutenants and the way we do the death certificate is by anatomical structure.

Me: That doesn’t make any sense and that’s not going to work. . . .

Investigator: I can have the lieutenant call you.

[Lieutenant calls me. ]
​
Lieutenant: . . . In this office, we go by anatomical reproductive organs that are intact. This happens a lot. I mean we are in L.A.

Me: Right. I get that trans people end up in your office relatively frequently.  You mean that you all still don't have any policies in place to ensure that people are correctly identified on their death certificates?

[I repeat what I have shared with at least three other individuals at the coroner’s office--“anatomical structures/organs/etc.” are not in any way determinative of a person’s gender; this kind of discrimination leads to inaccuracies in government documents and dishonors and erases the lives of people; in 2014 the LA coroner must have some kind of policy on gender markers, and so on. . .]

Lieutenant: Here, we just go by reproductive organs. . . This is just the death certificate, the family can dress him up any way you want for the world.

Hurt by the brazen and casual anti-trans violence; and in sheer terror and panic at the idea that all that my partner fought for in life could be blotted out with the simple stroke of a pen, I mustered my best poker voice and let this lieutenant know that an attorney would be in touch with him about this. I suppose I thought that he might simply agree to do as requested. Not so much. I had no idea who was going to take on this case (which literally had to be resolved within less than a day or two). 

And so, after his passing, I had to work to find and communicate with attorneys; organize life celebrations in three states, and a funeral in another; support Ki’tay’s mother with all that comes with a sudden passing; hold up all those who Ki'tay touched who needed to be held in this terrible time of loss; while continuing my own volunteer advocacy for disabled/deaf incarcerated individuals and wrapping up grades for two classes of university students. All of this while trying to grieve the loss of the greatest human and partner and figure out what to do about the fact that those who knew him least were busy commodifying Ki’tay:

• Hosting gatherings in his name and requesting donations for things other than costs that his low-income family needed to provide his body and spirit safe passage;
• publishing articles about him for webpage views, attention & sympathy when these same individuals and organizations barely knew and never supported him;
• “family” showing up at his life celebrations just to intentionally misgender Ki'tay, gain sympathy despite having been violent toward Ki'tay in life; and chide & threaten those who dared to speak the truth about who he was and what he stood for (using religion as a justification for this literal violence);
• coaxing his grief stricken low-income family out of unseemly amounts for mostly unnecessary funeral “services,” then taking photos of him to use to take advantage of future grief stricken families (I will have to write a separate post that covers commodification of death by what I call funeral corporations);
• and other treachery….

"It is just a death certificate. You can dress him up any way you want to for the world."

I was at a loss on the phone that day, and have been in a haze for some time since, but here is what I wish I had been able to say to the lieutenant:

Mr. Smith, if your death certificate labeled you as Ms. Smith, would it be "just a death certificate" then?
It is not “just a death certificate,” and our lives & deaths are not a game of “dress up.”
This certificate of death reflects his breath in life. It reflects his triumph in life--over people like you.
Before you lies a man who packed 100 years of active love and righteous struggle into just twenty-two.
Before you lies a man who is unapologetically black, trans, man, disabled, queer, revolution.
Before you lies a man who gave his all for humanity.
Honor him.

After quite a bit of work from a team of attorneys and several who loved Ki’tay, we triumphed. His death certificate rightly reads, male. This was a huge victory for Ki'tay, but I still grieve deeply about this and its many  implications.

How many trans people have gone through this violence before him and how many since? What about those who did not have any family who valued the whole humanity of our departed trans loved ones? Those who did not have a partner with education and legal networking privilege? What of them? What of those to come?

I have been consumed by various kinds of grief since Ki'tay's passing. This grief, however--the grief of knowing that transfolk, still have to fight for justice, love & dignity in death--should not exist. And yet, here I am, still grieving this so. Here is my call to love & action for us all:

Do not force us to fight in death like we are made to fight in life.
Do not make us grieve in death like we are made to grieve in life.
Allow our loved ones to grieve our loss, not your violence.
Let us love.
Let us live.
Let us die [of natural causes].
Let us be [free].

As for my partner:
Call him KI'TAY.
Call him HE.
Call him LOVE.

###

Eternal thanks to the attorneys who supported Ki’tay in death to be his truest self & to family who literally and figuratively showed up at the coroner’s to honor Ki’tay’s whole self & demand the justice that he always demanded for himself and others:
Dorcas Williams, Ki’tay’s Mother
Sasha Burchert, Transgender Law Center
Allie Cannington, Ki’tay’s Dearest Friend
Susan Mizner, ACLU, Disability Counsel
Shruti Purkayastha, Ki’tay’s Housemate & Friend
Chase Strangio, ACLU, LGBTQ & AIDS Project
Turay, Dear Friend of Ki’tay
Ilona Turner, Transgender Law Center

TL & Kitay in a room with a random piece of light brown beach-like square art on the wall. TL is shying from the camera and leaning on Ki'tay while hiding TL's face & wide smile with a hand that has a wrist brace on it. Ki'tay is smiling at the camera with headphones on.

Ki'tay wearing a red t-shirt leaning over to kiss TL on the cheek. TL, wearing a white tee smiles widely at the camera. A heart is seen on the wall just behind TL's head. A face of meditation is mounted on the wall & looks over the room. A coat rack is seen on the wall under the heart.