When this video first got uploaded to YouTube a few months ago, I thought about posting and commenting on it based on the lousy reporting in it that tried and miserably failed to make this situation humorous.Because of other pressing news matters and other issues that garnered my attention I let this one slide for a minute.
Now in light of what's been happening in Memphis over the last few months, I'm recognizing it as a alarm bell and a window into the transphobia that permeates some quarters of the community in Memphis. I believe the frustration over that transphobia and other situations in the Memphis transgender community probably triggered the negative reactions of the transpeople involved in this McDonald blowup chronicled in this jacked up report.
It also gives us some understanding into why all of a sudden Memphis has become a dangerous city for transpeople to live in.
I'm also beginning to warm up to the idea being floated in some quarters of the transgender community of having us and our allies boycott Memphis until their po-po's get it through their heads that 'protect and serve the citizens' means ALL Memphis residents, and that Memphis realizes that it's not okay to declare open season on their transgender residents.Memphis citizens, if you don't work diligently to find the person or persons who are committing these attacks on transgender people, you may one day have this violence visited upon a member of your own family who may or may not be a transwoman. One that day you will painfully learn the lesson of the 'inescapable web of mutuality' that Dr. King talked about.
Memphis, you have a problem, and it's time in conjunction with local groups in the city, the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition and other state groups to work together to solve it before more people get hurt or killed.
