I Set Out To Report On Violence Against Trans People. No One Wanted To Talk.

Afewweeks ago, I awoke to a text message from a friend. She wrote to me from the hospital, where she had stayed overnight with three young trans people who had been assaulted the evening before. My friend, an organizer in the trans community, had attended a Transgender Day of Remembrance event at Washington Square Park. It was on the way home from the event that the three were attacked.

I couldn’t imagine the shock and pain of these three young transgender people walking home, having just shared collective grief. Transgender Day of Remembrance is when we read the names of each person we’ve lost to anti-transgender violence. We light candles and share tight embraces in the cold while tears stream down our faces. Leaving this space in a solemn state, these folks must have thought about all the names they just heard, read out loud. Were they thinking they were going to be next? I would have, in their situation. And all this in Manhattan, a few blocks away from Stonewall Inn, where pride was born.

I teach self-defense classes for trans people, and stories like these come up all the time. I always start with the same message: Don’t fight. Run. Get away and live to fight another day.

It’s not the advice people expect, but it’s the only advice that will better ensure people’s safety. This phrase is my decades of martial arts experience wrapped into one statement. It’s the Bruce Lee art of fighting without fighting. In a violent situation, adrenaline and pride can cause us to take on unnecessary risks. As trans people, we can’t depend on people to be on our side, especially in public. In some horrific instances, when violence erupts, people are just as likely to cheer attackers on than stand with you.

The people who come to my classes bring stories with them. With each story, I lose a part of myself, and a part of them stays with me. Every time I get a message about one of my peers being harassed, humiliated or attacked — in schools, subway stations and prison cells — it puts me in their shoes, and I become a part of the story.

I imagine them in class asking the same questions everyone else does. Someone would share a traumatic story of violence, and ask me what I would have done. I always answer the same way: Create space between you and your attacker. Put something, anything, between you and your opponent. Even if it’s a bystander. Your only priority is survival. Your friends, your family — they all need you to come home. When I say this, there is always a moment of collective silence between us. It’s as if we’re reminded that we’re worth saving.

I reached out to my friend who was with the three individuals mentioned earlier and to the people who created the social media post. I begged them to take the story to the press. No one wanted to talk. Not even anonymously. The three survivors didn’t want to draw that kind of attention to themselves. I couldn’t help but feel frustrated. At first, I didn’t understand. Isn’t visibility supposed to be our weapon? How can we fight for change if we don’t tell our stories?

This has been becoming a common thread in my experience, working with transgender activists and LGBTQ sources. People I’ve seen on the front lines, holding banners and chanting into megaphones have begun to step back, retreating into silence.

We reached the transgender tipping point in 2014 with Lavern Cox on the cover of Time magazine, when overtime anti-transgender discrimination became more organized. I’ve watched as the people I admire — activists, organizers, fighters — were being doxxed, harassed or followed in their cars. I’ve seen the toll it takes to be visible and to be the target of so much hate. Perhaps for many of us, silence isn’t a weakness. It’s survival.

I set out to report on violence against trans people, but I’ve come away with something else: a reminder that silence is not the same as absence. Just because these stories aren’t in the headlines doesn’t mean they aren’t happening. When someone chooses not to speak, it doesn’t mean they don’t have a voice. While some trans visibility is necessary for us to eventually reach equity with other identities, no one should be forced to take on that responsibility ― especially when visibility can be so dangerous.

I’m taken back to the self-defense classes, standing in front of a room full of trans people, in fear of facing violence, wondering what they can do to protect themselves. My main objective as an instructor is to help them avoid danger once they step out of the class. In the class, I might encourage people not to talk to journalists or put their names in articles. Although I wish I could, I won’t be there to defend them if they ever face a violent situation in their lives.

Asking people to reopen fresh wounds with their names displayed publicly isn’t much different than expecting them to use my self-defense techniques in a physical confrontation. But journalism is a dangerous and necessary means to uncover truth and fight for a better world. It’s a risk that’s no different from what our LGBTQ ancestors endured to fight for the freedoms we have today.

It’s OK to stay quiet, heal in private and pass around Venmo links. That’s how we create space between us and potential danger. We win by living full lives in the face of adversity. Simply existing is an act of resistance, and we should be given the choice to keep our stories for ourselves. I’d never pressure someone to speak out publicly, but I’ll always encourage it.

We need to hear your voices, but more importantly, we need you here.