I'm lighting metaphorical candles & praying really hard for this kid...

[Shana A]

I'm lighting metaphorical candles & praying really hard for this kid...
Filed by: Gina de Vries
February 14, 2008 3:20 PM

http://www.bilerico.com/2008/02/im_lighting_metaphorical_candles_praying.php

A fifteen year-old queer (and possibly trans? definitely gender-variant...) kid was shot at his school yesterday, and has been declared brain-dead.

I don't even know what to say. This really upsets me. I'm praying for him and his friends and family. I have a lot I want to write about youth and survival, violence and strength, beauty and god... But at the moment, I'm just trying really hard not to cry for this person I haven't even met.

[lady amarant]

Sad and horrible. Those are the only words that keep coming to mind.

Yet another wake-up call for legislators to act on. Maybe this time? Maybe next? What is it gonna take for society to wake up and realise that we are here, we are just people, and that we're not going to vanish if they ignore us hard enough. How many unnecessary deaths?
...

[Shana A]

Sad and horrible. Those are the only words that keep coming to mind.

Mine too. I am so tired of reading about our trans sisters and brothers being killed for who they are!

Zythyra

[lady amarant]

I am so tired of reading about our trans sisters and brothers being killed for who they are!

It's like a physical blow every time, because there's anger and fear that it could happen to you and sadness and ...

It's so important that we keep reading every story of loss, because in some cases we might be the only people that really care. That's the saddest part of all.

Thanks to everybody who finds these stories and posts them.

[tekla]

I'm also tired of reading about kids who are killed for wearing the wrong colors in the wrong neighborhood, who are killed because they tried to do the right thing, because they were getting out of a gang, or because they were in Iraq protecting American Oil Company interests.  Every death is tragic.