Transgender Day of Remembrance is annually scheduled on November 20. It is a day to memorialize and remember those who have been murdered as a result of transphobia, and a day to highlight the continued violence and transphobia endured by transgender people. 

In the United States, at least 30 trans and gender-diverse people were killed in 2019. In the world, that number is 331, according to a report by Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide. According to the Human Rights Campaign, 91% of those murdered were Black trans women. 

The killing of transgender people, specifically Black transgender women, has been a continuous tragedy. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation has tracked anti-transgender violence and has found that at least 22 transgender and gender non-comforming people are killed by fatal violent acts each year.

In the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement stood for not only the end of segregation and discrimination against African Americans, but also supported the LGBTQ+ movement. One central figure in the fight for equality was a Black transgender woman named Marsha P. Johnson - a drag performer and sex worker - who stood at the center of not only the gay liberation and racial equality movement, but also advocated for rights and protections of sex workers, prisoners and people with HIV/AIDS. Through her work, she helped to found the group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), which provided housing and other support to homeless, queer and transgender youth and highlighted the struggles of transgender people forced into sex work in order to support themselves. They created the first LGBT youth shelter in North America as well as the first organization in the United States led by trans women of color.  Marsha P Johnson courageously and fearlessly fought for the Black community, LGBTQ community and sex workers in Manhattan. In 1992, her body was found in the Hudson River, and the police unjustly ruled her death a suicide. 

Another central figure and activist for the Black transgender community is Miss Major, a Black transgender activist who has fought for nearly 50 years to pave the way for a better and more equal world for the trans and gender non-conforming community. For over 20 years, she endured homelessness and turned to sex work in order to support herself. Miss Major took part in many forms of activism, including the Stone Wall Riots in 1969, and has been a community leader for transgender rights, with a focus on women of color. She served as the original Executive Director for the Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project, which provides support and assists transgender persons who are disproportionately incarcerated. Today, she continues to fight for and support the Black transgender community and is an active advocate for equality and justice. 

For Black transgender women, the challenges are further exacerbated by both racism and sexism. Even in the face of danger, discrimination and hatred that is endorsed by even those in the highest levels of our government, the transgender and gender non-conforming community stays strong and courageous to overcome unjust barriers in every part of the country.

Racial injustices are myriad. An example that does not get as much attention as some is the ‘Indian Schools” of the early 1800s. In those days, many leaders subscribed to “manifest destiny,” the belief that white European society was superior to all other cultures and white settlers were destined to remake the North American continent in their image. “Indian schools” were an offshoot of this belief. Congress established the “Civilization Fund” expressly to “civilize” Native Americans. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was created to oversee programs designed to further this goal.

On November 1, 1879, the Carlisle Indian School opened in Carlisle, PA. Its founder believed it necessary to “kill the Indian” in Native American youth in order to “save the man,” according to the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center. In other words, Native American youth were to be totally assimilated into white culture, with no vestige of their tribal identity remaining, and turned into economically-productive adults. Carlisle was the first of many boarding schools across the country.

Children were forcibly removed from their homes, and parents who attempted to protest were forced to flee, hide, or face imprisonment. Some parents sent their children without protest, as Native American children were not allowed to attend local white schools. The Indian Schools were the only way to secure a Euro-centric education for Native American children. However, this learning came at a terrible cost. Native youth were thought by school officials to be “born … savage and raised in an atmosphere of superstition and ignorance... lack[ing] at the outset those advantages which are inherited” by white children, according to Carlisle Resource Center. The goal of these schools was to teach Native youth “to lay aside … savage customs like a garment and take [on] the habits of civilized life.” Native American children attending boarding schools were given English names, forced to cut their hair, and forbidden from speaking their native languages. Students received vocational training but very little academic instruction, with the expectation that they would make their living as farmers or manual laborers. Conditions in many schools were poor and students were often the victims of physical and sexual abuse.

In Iowa, the U.S. Government opened such a school at the Meskwaki Settlement in Tama in 1875. As with such schools in the East, the focus was on learning English, agriculture, and carpentry instead of academics. However, the students lived with their parents. Approximately twenty years later, dissatisfied with the “progress” the children were making, the government opened a boarding school in Toledo, Iowa. Native American children were brought to that school from all over the country to be assimilated.

The Indian Schools lasted through the first quarter of the 20^th century, when reform proponents submitted The Meriam Report, detailing the schools’ poor conditions and unreasonable focus on assimilation, discipline, and vocational training. Support began to decline, and when one of the report’s authors, John Collier, became Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1933, he took steps toward dismantling the assimilationist agenda of the Indian boarding schools. Sadly, generations of children had by that time been stripped of their heritage.

Today, Meskwaki education is in the hands of the tribe at the Meskwaki Settlement School in Tama. Meskwaki students go to school close to home and are taught by those who understand tribal ways. When students reach the ninth grade, they leave the Meskwaki Settlement School for North Tama County Community School District.

November is National Native American Heritage month, the perfect time to enjoy books by and about Native Americans past and present. The Library of Congress notes that this month “celebrates and recognizes the accomplishments of the peoples who were the original inhabitants, explorers and settlers of the United States.”

The road to equality is long and winding. President John Kennedy began Fair Housing efforts in November of 1962, when he signed an Executive Order banning federally-funded housing organizations from discriminating on the basis of race. While this was an important signal to organizations such as the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), the Order lacked an enforcement mechanism. Therefore, practices such as redlining continued, since agencies were simply directed to review their own policies and practices for discrimination and allowed to regulate themselves.

Redlining was a method for rating the risk of lending, based upon the racial demographics of the neighborhood in which properties were located. Black neighborhoods were typically labelled “red,” which signified high-risk for loan default. Therefore, home loans were granted in white neighborhoods but not majority-minority ones, leaving African-Americans without access to federally-backed mortgages. This system was one of many that created and perpetuated systemic inequality in household wealth.

The next step on the road to housing equality was the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibits discrimination in housing on the basis of race, as well as several other bases. Unlike President Kennedy’s Executive Order, the Fair Housing Act does contain enforcement mechanisms and is an important tool for combatting racial discrimination in housing.

However, the legacy of redlining continues in the race gap in lending. Even today, only about 45% of Black Americans own homes, while almost 75% of white Americans do, according to Census data. African-Americans with bachelor’s degrees have a lower home ownership rate than white high-school drop-outs (56.4% as opposed to 60.5%), according to an American Community Survey from 2017. A potential contributing factor is student-loan debt. African-Americans have more student debt than any other racial group in the U.S. High student debt is one factor in making African-American borrowers less likely to meet mortgage lending standards, especially since lending has tightened in the past ten years, according to the Urban Institute. 

Research has shown that over a fifth (21.9%) of the race gap in mortgage lending can be explained by differences in credit scores among African-American and white borrowers, according to the Urban Institute. Nationwide, racial differences in credit scores can be traced to redlining and community segregation, which limited African-Americans’ access to traditional credit sources and disproportionately exposed them to predatory lenders.

Ensuring fair lending practices is imperative to addressing racial wealth and home ownership gaps. One proposed method of increasing access to mortgage loans for African-American borrowers is considering rent and utility payments in the decision whether to grant a loan. While missed payments are considered, a potential borrower’s history of timely rent and utility payments is not typically utilized by lenders. This information, however, is one of the strongest indicators of whether a borrower will successfully manage a mortgage, according to the Urban Institute. Progress has been made in the past 60 years, but much more progress is needed to ensure fair housing for all.

Mastercard began a new program called “True Name” in June of 2019, which allows transgender and non-binary people to use their preferred name, rather than their legal name, on their credit and debit cards. Now Citigroup, the second-largest issuer of credit cards in the U.S., has signed on. Citigroup has 11.6% of the credit card market in 2020, surpassed only by Chase with 16.6%, according to CardRates.com. Citigroup is the largest financial organization yet to sign on to the True Name program. Mastercard’s President of U.S. Issuers, Raj Seshadri, noted that the goal was “a card that represents an individual as who they truly are.” This is a significant step forward for transgender and non-binary individuals, as nearly a third of them report having had negative experiences related to the name on their banking cards.

Next July, Eduardo Peñalver will make history for the second time when he becomes the first Latino President of Seattle University since its founding in 1891. A Jesuit institution, Seattle University has a student body of approximately 7,000; 12% of its undergraduates are Hispanic. Peñalver, who is Catholic, will also be the first layperson (non-ordained member of a church) selected as President.

Achievement is nothing new to Peñalver, who was also the first Latino to serve as Dean of Cornell University’s Law School. While there, he created the Farmworker Legal Assistance Clinic, which provides assistance to area farm workers with immigration and employment issues. He also made changes that allowed Cornell to provide financial aid to immigrant students.

Peñalver also served as a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who he credits as a mentor. Noting that he has become used to being the only or one of the only Latinos throughout his career, he says, “I tell my students that your mentors do not have to look exactly like you. It is about their openness and interest in you,” he said, according to NBC News. “For people of color in settings where there are not many of us, many mentors have to be different from us.”

Nicole Piasecki, chair of the Seattle University Board of Trustees, said that their selection of Peñalver was “as enthusiastic as it was unanimous.” She characterized him as “an innovative thinker” who is “passionate about the power of the university to make the world a better place” in an article written by  Seattle University. 

In 2016, only 4% of college and university presidents were Latino, a figure that has not changed since 2001, according to the American Council on Education. Although he is leaving the legal profession, Peñalver hopes more Latinos will consider it. In 2018, the National Hispanic Bar Association found that only 4.2 percent of U.S. lawyers were Hispanic. Peñalver, who is of Cuban heritage, is also a licensed pilot.

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