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My Name is Max - Trans Day of Remembrance Testimony [1]
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Date: 2022-11-20
Artwork by Max Donnelly
I went to a Trans Day of Remembrance Event today. Max Donnelly spoke. What he said moved me. I asked if I could publish it here — for the community. He said, “Yes.”
My name is Max. I first said that publicly on June 1, 2019. That wasn’t always my name. I took on this name as an adult, to better fit who I knew I was meant to be.
Names are important. Every name has a meaning. Some would say it is our greatest connection to our identity. But, without two women of color who chose names that reflected who they knew themselves to be - Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who, in addition to their roles at Stonewall, opened the first LGBTQ+ youth shelter in North America, and were the first Trans women of color to lead an organization in the United States - and without the stands they both took, I would not have been able to choose mine.
As I look to my 43rd birthday tomorrow, I sit with the knowledge that there was a time when I could have never envisioned reaching this milestone. And, with the realization that, in making the changes that I’ve needed to make to survive, I open myself up to the risk of appearing on this list myself.
The first Trans Day of Remembrance was held in 1999, organized by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, a trans advocate. It began as a response to the murder of Rita Hester. She was a trans woman, who was brutally murdered in her own home. In death, she was deadnamed and misgendered in the press coverage that followed. Her murder, as that of far too many, remains unsolved. And so, each year we honor and remember those who we have lost this year through anti-trans/non-binary/gender-diverse violence. In recent years, those lost to COVID-19 and suicide have been added because lack of access to healthcare (physical and mental), and the absence of love and support are also acts of violence.
We remember that these are far more than names on a list - in life, they had hopes and dreams. Those who knew them as were and were meant to be known. In saying their names, we ensure that their memory, and in a way, they themselves, live on.
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