Transgender people regularly struggle with others’ failure to recognize their authentic selves. Often, their difficulties are the result of societal definitions and expectations surrounding the performance of gender. Additionally, regulatory and medical hurdles can bar access to needed remedies that help trans people align their bodies, appearances and legal identities to their actual realities. Sadly, these challenges do not end at their deaths. Even after they pass away, their families, local officials and the media often do not acknowledge the true realities of their lives.
Families Often Control Memorials and Obituaries
The case with Jennifer Gable, an Idaho woman who died unexpectedly in late 2014, illustrates how families can exert much control over the ways in which their transgender loved ones are memorialized. The Miami Herald reported in a November 2014 article that Gable’s friends were shocked to find her hair cut short and her body dressed in men’s clothes at her funeral. Additionally, her obituary and public memorials posted online by her family only referred to her by her birth name and with male pronouns, completely failing to mention the life she’d lived as Jennifer.
A January 2015 Vice article explained that cases such as Gable’s are rather common. Unaccepting relatives of a deceased transgender person typically make every attempt possible to present him or her as their assigned gender at birth. Michael Silverman, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, described these relatives as frequently “sweeping in” with the “power of the law on their side.” They insist that the person’s birth name appears in obituaries, public death announcements and on gravesites. Fortunately, legal spouses of transgender loved ones may have some leverage in fighting against such maneuvers, especially after marriage equality became legal in June 2015. However, the loved ones of a single trans individual may have no recourse, even if the person has changed his or her name and gender marker using the courts and regulatory procedures.
Legal and Journalistic Requirements Add More Complications
Legal and procedural complexities may also determine how a trans person is reported and recorded after death. In several states, death certificates are completed by funeral directors. As Silverman elaborated, their decisions are often influenced by whoever is paying for funerary arrangements. Also, coroners may strictly adhere to the practice of using genitalia to identify the deceased’s gender. Even in the face of legislative measures like California’s Respect After Death Act, family members must sometimes pressure for corrected documentation to be issued.
In addition, municipal emergency services and the media often revert to birth names and gender markers in absence of other legally identifying documents. Updating these can pose significant burdens for many transgender people, especially when medical proof is required. Such was the case with Kayden Clarke, an Arizona autistic transgender man killed by police in early 2016. In the weeks following his death, many news outlets used his birth name and female pronouns in their reports. A joint statement released by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network and other groups revealed that Clarke had been refused access to testosterone therapy by a practitioner who insisted that he would need to be “cured” of autism first. Presently, there is no cure for autism, and other research suggests that it is a variation in human neurology rather than a disease.
Friends and Loved Ones Fight to Properly Memorialize Transgender Individuals
Even after some trans people are no longer alive, those around them may not recognize them as the individuals they truly were. Unsupportive families can reframe the narrative around their lives, while legal and journalistic policies fail to recognize the complex bureaucratic situations in which trans folk often find themselves. Because of these factors, it is often left up to their closest friends and loved ones to properly honor their memories.
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