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BY D AVID MYLES AND KELLY LEWIS

ABSTRACT In this paper, we investigate the role that mourning and commemoration practices play in con - temporary trans rights activism. Drawing from visual politics, digital activist culture, as well as media and communication, we analyse how trans rights movements construct injustice symbols that are used for sociopolitical mobilisation and expression. We contend that these symbols are constructed through shared communicative practices, which produce and circulate visuals that possess important memetic qualities (pictures, slogans, hashtags, graffiti, posters, etc.). To do so, we analyse three case studies where the unjust death of a trans person was collectively mobilised for political purposes: Jennifer Laude (Philippines, 1988-2014), Hande Kader (Turkey, 1993- 2016), and Marsha P. Johnson (United States of America, 1945-1992). While each case study points to local or national specificities, our comparative analysis also underlines transnational trends in the production of posthumous visuals within contemporary trans rights activism. We conclude by addressing the contentions over the construction of trans symbols who inherently possess intersectional identities.

KEYWORDS Activism, digital media technologies, icons, injustice symbols, memetic visuals, trans rights

David Myles is a postdoctoral fellow at Queensland University of Technology’s Digital Media Research Centre. He holds a PhD in communication from the Université de Montréal. His research explores digital media technologies, death and crime, as well as gender and sexual diversity. Kelly Lewis is a PhD candidate at Queensland University of Technology’s Digital Media Research Centre. Her research explores the role of digitally mediated visuals and affect in the context of political activism and contemporary social justice movements. CONSTRUCTING INJUSTICE SYMBOLS IN CONTEMPORARY TRANS RIGHTS ACTIVISMS 25

According to presence in the Philippines; Hande Kader, a the Trans Murder Monitoring Project Turkish activist who was raped and burnt in (2018), almost 3000 murders of trans and 2016 and whose death sparked the interna - gender-diverse persons have been reported tional #HandeKaderSesVer Twitter cam - globally since 2008. In response to this on - paign; and Marsha P. Johnson, an American going violence, there has been a surge in trans rights activist who died from uncer - initiatives among LGBTQ+ activist groups tain circumstances in 1992 and who has like street demonstrations, social media been the source of increased LGBTQ+ mo - campaigns and monitoring projects to bilisation since the release of a biographical highlight the injustice of these deaths. Netflix documentary in 2017. While trans activism is not new, dating back Drawing from visual politics, digital ac - at least to the early 1970s (Heany 2014), tivist culture, as well as media and commu - the development of digital media technolo - nication, our comparative analysis shows gies has transformed how trans rights that practices of mourning and commemo - groups collectively mobilise, gain visibility, ration play a key role in the grassroots con - and demand justice on a global scale (O’Ri - struction of injustice symbols for trans ordan 2005). rights activism, while also voicing struggles In the past decade, scholars have studied as to who is allowed to become the icon of trans murder cases or trials to understand a sociopolitical movement. We conclude by the representations of trans women in the addressing the contentions over the con - media. Notably, the 2002 murder of Gwen struction of individuals who inherently pos - Araujo, a young American sess intersectional identities (De Vries Latina, was analysed to deconstruct the 2012) as injustice symbols in the context of transphobic, racist, and heteronormative trans rights activism. discourses that circulated posthumously (Barker-Plummer 2013). More recently, Franklin and Lyons (2016, 440) investigat - INJUSTICE SYMBOLS AND ed the mobilisation generated in response THEIR DIGITAL MEDIATION to the Araujo murder case by focusing on As argued by Butler (2009), grief is not “the affective power of loss as a basis of po - solely about emotional containment or litical activism”. The authors’ findings re - coping mechanisms; rather, it can sustain assert the centrality of mourning and com - important acts of resistance that aim to memoration practices in political mo - make death politically productive. Here, we bilisation, which has been previously ob - understand mourning and commemoration served in the context of AIDS activism in as practices which draw from and generate the 1990s (Rand 2007). affective responses that not only galvanise In this paper, we investigate the role that sociopolitical mobilisation but also con - mourning and commemoration practices tribute in making the lives and deaths of and their digital mediation play in contem - queer subjects matter. By engaging in col - porary trans rights activism. To do so, we lective acts of mourning and commemora - explore three case studies where the unjust tion, trans rights activists and their sympa - death of a trans person was collectively mo - thisers directly appeal to moral emotions in bilised for political purposes: Jennifer ways that challenge dominant conceptions Laude, who was murdered by an American surrounding whose lives and whose losses soldier in 2014 and whose death sparked are deemed ‘grievable’ (Butler 2009). protests for trans rights and against US These practices constitute acts of queer re - 26 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019 sistance as they contest physical and sys - al activism for trans rights. In contempo - temic forms of violence, and redress rela - rary activism, ‘icons’ are understood as tions of power by claiming the right of “constructions in public discourses involv - trans persons to be seen and to matter. Our ing intense circulation across media plat - objective is to show how these acts are per - forms along repeated statements about formed through the development of shared their iconic status and ability to symbolise communicative practices whose digitally topical tensions or conflicts in society” mediated nature bridge and eventually col - (Mortensen 2017, 1144). Icons reshape lapse local and transnational contexts. conceptions and orient collective actions These practices rely on the production and posthumously by appealing to notions of circulation of visual contents that possess (in)justice and by invoking human rights important memetic qualities (pictures, slo - and dignity (Hariman and Lucaites 2018). gans, hashtags, graffiti, posters, etc.) and Indeed, they allow for the characterisation that are deployed as modalities for political of the deceased as something larger than resistance in embodied and digitally medi - themselves (a hero, an innocent victim, a ated forms of activism. Our main argument saint, etc.). In turn, this enables activists to is that trans rights movements – like several make collective claims in their names and other social justice movements – increas - to act upon these claims. As we show, while ingly construct ‘injustice symbols’ that are the construction of icons has traditionally digitally mediated and used as strategic and been a top-down process, much of the affective mechanisms for sociopolitical ex - iconicity work in trans rights activism is the pression. direct result of grassroot initiatives. Injustice symbols often relate to individ - For this paper, we specifically examine uals in “events and situations that involve the role of digitally mediated visuals and perceived moral and political transgressions their memetic qualities – i.e. their propen - (…) that are shaped by political dynamics sion to being extensively or rapidly repro - beyond their local/national origin and duced, modified and circulated online and [that contain] meanings for audiences out - in embodied protests – in constructing side of this context” (Olesen 2015, 1). In iconicity. Within contemporary activist cul - other words, they emerge in situations tures, the construction and remediation of where unjust human suffering or precarity memetic contents have become a reoccur - is representative of broader sociopolitical ring practice of visual politics that is in - contentions. As detailed below, the deaths creasingly employed as a mechanism to ex - of Jennifer, Hande, and Marsha are all pose instances of injustice and lay claims of framed by activist groups as unjust events authenticity (Shifman 2018). Broadly that illustrate transnational patterns in trans speaking, memetic visuals that make politi - rights abuse (among other intersecting is - cal claims (and that are born through sues). By being mourned and commemo - them) aim to bypass the control shared by rated collectively, these deaths become an the state or by mainstream media over the integral part of an ‘injustice memory’ (Ole - production and dissemination of authorita - sen 2015) that is revived through gather - tive and authentic content. As Mirzoeff ings on anniversaries, in festivities, or in the (2017, 18) states, the visual production of advent of similar killings. memetic content is key in social justice ac - In turn, these practices not only con - tivism, as “to appear” is to be grievable, tribute in humanising queer subjects by and to be grievable is to be “a person that deeming them worthy of grief; they also counts for something”. Thus, digitally me - make grief politically potent by transform - diated visuals that depict or symbolise the ing these subjects into icons of transnation - deceased become remediated as key re - CONSTRUCTING INJUSTICE SYMBOLS IN CONTEMPORARY TRANS RIGHTS ACTIVISMS 27 sources for expressing state distrust and for a US Navy Base from where Pemberton rearticulating resistance against censorship was on shore leave. The Navy Base’s pres - (Shifman 2018). ence in the region is part of a 2014 agree - Memetic forms of political expression ment that maintains the US government’s that enact the affordances of social media right to conduct its operations on Filipino can become particularly potent as they priv - grounds, operations that have been ongo - ilege visuality as a means to provide activists ing since the early 20 th century (Rauhala with new ways for doing politics and for 2014). Following the murder complaint, it being political. Memetic visuals often in - took over a month for Olongapo authori - volve expressive contents marked with ties to interview the American suspect who hashtags, a classificatory feature of social had fled to the Subic Bay Navy Base. This media typically used to aggregate content delay was due to the provision of a highly around a topic or event, which play a sig - contested agreement, the Visiting Forces nificant role in constituting affective and, in Agreement (VFA), which allows for the US this case, posthumous publics (Papacharissi government to retain jurisdiction over its 2015). As detailed below, each case study military personnel accused of crimes in the depicts the use of contextual hashtags that Southeast Asian country (Santos 2014). come to symbolise local grievances, while Three days after an official arrest warrant also underlining the use of prevalent hash - was filed for murder with aggravating cir - tags ( #TransLivesMatter , #JusticeFor… , cumstances on December 16, Pemberton etc.) that situate the production of posthu - appeared at the Olongapo Trial Court mous visuals within a transnational move - while remaining in US custody (Ng and de ment for trans rights. Each of our cases Castro 2014). highlight a key feeling of collective outrage that translates into contentious claims over what the deceased symbolise and over what they allow in terms of political potency. Building from our conceptual framework, the next three sections offer a comparative analysis on the protests sparked by the un - just deaths of Jennifer, Hande, and Marsha to highlight ongoing trends, as well as local or national contentions in contemporary trans rights activism.

JENNIFER LAUDE AND THE ROLE OF INJUSTICE INTERPRETERS On October 11, 2014, Jennifer Laude, a 26-year-old transgender Filipina woman, was killed in a motel room in Olongapo, a city situated 80 kilometres northwest of Manila. Four days later, an official com - plaint was filed against US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton, wanted for having beat - en, strangled, and drowned Jennifer in the motel’s bathroom (Gray 2014). Located in the Subic Bay, Olongapo City is the host of Figure 1 28 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

During this month of jurisdictional con - pressed sorrow at their own loss and anger flict, the Filipino media maintained an ex - at procedural delays. This media coverage tensive coverage of the ‘Laude murder was heightened by the demonstrations case’ that focused on Jennifer’s mother, sparked by Jennifer’s death in the Philip - Julita Cabillan, and fiancé, German nation - pines and in the US. During the week of al Marc Sueselbeck, who alternately ex - her wake, dozens of journalists gathered in CONSTRUCTING INJUSTICE SYMBOLS IN CONTEMPORARY TRANS RIGHTS ACTIVISMS 29 a small Catholic memorial room (see Fig - LGBTQ+ rights, mostly developed by hu - ure 1) to witness former Vice President Je - man rights groups, identified her killing as jomar Binay offer Mrs. Cabillan his condo - a hate crime and called for greater protec - lences (Reyes 2014), as well as the ‘emo - tions of trans persons (Teodoro 2014). tional’ entrance of Jennifer’s fiancé Two, an anti-imperialist and pro-nationalist (Macatuno 2014). Here, Jennifer’s family narrative claimed that, by preventing the members can be understood as ‘injustice Philippines to enforce its own criminal interpreters’ (Olesen 2018) who human - laws, the VFA directly increased the vulner - ised her suffering for both local and global ability of Filipino citizens in a way that jus - audiences, and amplified Jennifer’s killing tified for the country to regain its through persistent media appearances. sovereignty. For some, these two narratives On October 24, as Jennifer’s funeral were apprehended in an intersectional way. procession was under way, protesters took As argued by Naomi Fontanos, Executive to the streets (see Figure 2) during an Director of the trans rights organisation event entitled #JusticeForJennifer: National Ganda Filipinas, “remembering the death Day of Outrage (Cristobal 2014). On Face - of Jennifer Laude is part of our resistance book, pages like Justice for Jennifer Laude against gender-based violence and our call and the Filipino People were created to wit - to dismantle social forces and structures ness the injustice of her death and mobilise that promote it: sexism, patriarchy, and protests. On social media, hashtag-related militarism” (Tan 2015). content was circulated. Selfies of Jennifer For others, the same narratives appeared (see Figure 3) and images taken during to be competing, having to recognise that protests were shared alongside slogans like American imperialism played a part in Jen - #JusticeForJenniferLaude or #ConvictPem - nifer’s unjust killing, while refuting or berton . While some supporters identified omitting to address the issue of trans Jennifer’s death as a trans or LGBTQ+ rights. This is best illustrated by General issue by using hashtags like #TransLives - Gregorio Catapang, former chief of the Matter and #LGBTOutragePH , others Philippine armed forces, who stated that, framed her death as a geopolitical issue while Jennifer Laude’s killing would “not through the hashtags #JunkVFA , #USOut - affect our relationship with the United OFthePhilippines , and #NoToUSImperalism States”, the victim “is still a Filipino, and (see Figure 4). Jennifer’s family members we have to fight for his [sic] rights and for also participated in this geopolitical framing justice” (Whitlock 2014, emphasis added). of her death. On October 28, they released Thus, this underlines the existence of dis - crime scene photos showing her brutally cursive struggles over the authentic charac - beaten body alongside a banner that read terisation of Jennifer, alternately accepted “the VFA did this” (Carleon 2014). As in - (or denied) as a woman, as a trans person, justice interpreters, they shaped discourses or as a citizen of the Philippines. over Jennifer’s killing within a broader op - While Jennifer’s was ob - pressive regime by speaking to an embod - scured in some pro-nationalist discourses, it ied and personified grief, while also sug - was clearly articulated during the Pember - gesting the existence of wider injustices ton trial that began on March 23, 2015. (Olesen 2018). During the trial, Pemberton pled a trans Overall, these mourning and commemo - panic defence that failed to convince the ration practices contributed in developing Filipino jury (Stern 2015). On December two ongoing narratives that set to establish 1, 2015, he was sentenced to 12 years for the authentic meaning of Jennifer’s homi - the homicide – but not the murder – of cide. One, a transnational narrative on Jennifer. However, his sentence was later 30 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019

Figure 5

reduced to 10 years because of so-called HANDE KADER AND mitigating circumstances, the judge having THE COUNTERVISUALITY OF qualified Pemberton’s act as a passionate TRANS RESISTANCE crime partly caused by the victim’s obfusca - On August 8, 2016, Hande Kader, a 23- tion and intoxication (Torres-Tupas 2015). year-old Turkish transgender woman, sex Further demonstrations were held to de - worker, and LGBTQ+ rights activist was mand that Pemberton, who should be serv - found brutally murdered in her hometown ing his sentence in the US guarded section of Istanbul. Hande was last seen entering a of Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City until car with a client in the district of Harbiye in 2025, be moved to a civilian Filipino prison late July 2016 (Daily Sabah 2016). After (Love de Jesus 2015). While some years she did not return home, a missing person have passed since Jennifer’s killing, the re - report was filed by her friends. Police initi - lease of an American documentary entitled ated a search and rescue and, 10 days later, Call Her Ganda (Raval 2018), which pre - Hande’s body was discovered heavily muti - miered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, lated, raped, and burnt in the upscale brought the Laude case to the forefront of neighbourhood of Zekeriyaköy (BBC News transnational campaigns for trans rights by 2016). To date, no suspects have been offering an analysis at the intersection of identified for her murder (Ertan 2017). cissexism, classism, racism, and colonialism. Hande became an important figurehead of the LGBTQ+ movement following a vi - olent police crackdown on participants dur - CONSTRUCTING INJUSTICE SYMBOLS IN CONTEMPORARY TRANS RIGHTS ACTIVISMS 31 ing the Istanbul Pride March and Trans 2017). Consequently, while both Hande’s Pride March on June 28, 2015. While activism and murder received significant in - these marches were banned by the Istanbul ternational media coverage, Turkish rights Governor’s Office (Al Jazeera 2016a), par - groups criticised national mainstream me - ticipants defiantly gathered in Taksim dia for their deliberate silence on her mur - Square where police dispersed crowds with der (Trian 2016). Citing the case of Özge - water cannons, rubber bullets, and pepper can Aslan, a Turkish cisgender woman spray. It was at that time that Hande’s re - whose attempted rape and brutal murder in bellious stand against the anti-riot police 2015 mobilised tens of thousands of was captured by photojournalists (see Fig - protesters, the LGBTQ+ community ex - ure 5). Her face in tears, she reproached pressed frustrations toward the lack of at - the photojournalists saying: “You take pic - tention on Hande’s murder and stated that tures but you do not publish them. No one the “life of a should be as is hearing our voices” (Ertan 2017). Im - valuable as the life of a cisgender woman” ages and videos of Hande’s protest were (Al Jazeera 2016b). By juxtaposing the extensively circulated across mainstream names and images of Hande and Özgecan and social media (Kedistan 2016), turning (see Figure 6), activists employed tactics of her into a face of resistance within the countervisuality (Mirzoeff 2011). Specifi - Turkish LGBTQ+ rights movement. cally, they set to visually establish that trans Hande’s murder occurred in the after - lives should be recognised as lives worth math of a failed coup d’état against Turkish living (and as deaths worth being President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on July mourned) in ways that challenged domi - 15, 2016, and the subsequent imposing of nant cisheteronormative discourses. These a two-year-long State of Emergency Law mourning and commemoration practices that saw a tightening of press freedoms and can be understood as political acts of queer increased hostility within Turkey’s pro-gov - resistance that aim to publicly and collec - ernment news organisations toward the tively resist trans segregation and erasure LGBTQ+ community (Fox and Yalcin from civil society.

Figure 6 32 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019

After a week of media silence, the campaign tice for Hande Kader protest and invited #HandeKaderSesVer (give voice to or speak people to march from Tünel to Galatasaray out for Hande Kader, Ertan 2016) was Square on August 21. On that day, hun - launched on August 17. Local activists cre - dreds of people defied the state of emer - ated an online petition called Transgender gency and mobilised in solidarity to protest murders are political and need to be stopped in the streets of Istanbul, Ankara, and other (change.org, 2016) that urged the police cities across Turkey (Middle East Eye and the Justice Ministry to punish Hande’s 2016). Demonstrators carried photos of killer(s), an initiative that received 15,000 Hande, rainbow flags, as well as placards signatures by August 19 (and 61,726 in to - and banners stating “trans lives matter”, tal). On Facebook, the Istanbul LGBTI “justice for Hande Kader”, and “let’s fight Solidarity Association established the Jus - for our survival” (Al Jazeera 2016b). As

Figure 8 CONSTRUCTING INJUSTICE SYMBOLS IN CONTEMPORARY TRANS RIGHTS ACTIVISMS 33 shown in Figure 7, the slogan “trans cinayetleri politiktir” (or transgender mur - ders are political ) was used in political memes and was chanted by demonstrators (SBS 2016). Other activists (see Figure 8) painted tears made of artificial blood (Mid - dle East Eye 2016) and wrote “I want to live” on their bodies (Warren 2016). These practices symbolise and act upon a collec - tive outrage in the face of trans lives’ op - pression or erasure. To borrow from Butler (2009), they speak to the identification of a

Figure 7

“shared precarity” that calls for universal rights. This outrage was not confined to Turkey. On Twitter, some called on international leaders including Barack Obama, Justin Trudeau, and Angela Merkel to take a po - litical stand against Hande’s murder and stop the injustice being committed against trans people in Turkey. Events also took place in Berlin, Bern, and Amsterdam (Atria 2016). In Hong Kong, various rights groups protested at the Turkish Consulate General in solidarity with the Turkish LGBTQ+ community (WKNews 2016). International rights groups, including the Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies (2016), issued public statements calling for Erdogan to publicly denounce Hande’s brutal murder, to en - sure that prosecution be brought against the perpetrator(s), and to take all legal measures to protect the Turkish LGBTQ+ community. Furthermore, in the years fol - lowing her death, activists and artists have 34 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019 worked to keep the spotlight on her mur - the Inn’s patrons carried out violent acts of der by creating several works of film, art, resistance that lasted for several days and and literature. largely contributed to establishing the US In a rare public display of solidarity with Movement (Kissack 1995). the Turkish LGBTQ+ community, some While the nature of Marsha’s involvement opposition parliament members joined ac - in instigating the is subject tivists in a press conference to speak out to ongoing debates, 1 her early activism for against Hande’s murder, labelling it a hate the protection of trans rights is well estab - crime, and asserted that “most aggressors lished (Ferguson 2019). Alongside activist charged with violence against transgender Sylvia Rivera, Marsha cofounded the Street sex workers have been able to get off scot Transvestites Action Revolutionaries free” (Ertan 2017). During the event, (STAR) in 1970, an outreach initiative that Deputy enal Sarıhan of the Republican coordinated unprecedented effort in caring People’s Party publicly stated that “peace for trans, homeless, and sex working per - and unity in a community can only be sons (Bishop 2018). In the late 1980s and achieved through a joint fight against vio - early 1990s, Marsha remained a devoted lence and hate, whether it is manifested in HIV activist and a popular drag performer. terrorist attacks, murder by the bullet of a A few days after her body’s discovery, spouse, or the killing of someone perceived Marsha’ friends and admirers walked down as the other” (ibid.). However, she re - 7th Avenue toward frained from referring explicitly to the vio - Piers where they scattered her ashes. Mar - lence perpetrated against Turkish trans citi - sha’s death, which generated little media zens, which highlights discursive struggles attention in 1992, 2 occurred in unclear cir - over the social recognition of trans murders cumstances. While members of the com - as specific acts of political injustice. In her munity insisted on the possibility of foul death, Hande came to symbolise govern - play, the police rapidly classified it as a sui - mental failures in protecting the Turkish cide. The community was outraged and or - LGBTQ+ community and the curtailment ganised demonstrations where protesters of their civil liberties. Her murder has also carried “justice for Marsha” signs and been used to draw broader attention to chanted slogans for the police to “do their Turkey’s increasing anti-secular stance and jobs!” (see Figure 9). In the early 1990s, its consequences for human rights and free - members of the LGBTQ+ community and, dom of expression (Shafak 2016). notably, trans women of colour were al - ready the incessant victims of violent crimes that often failed to be thoroughly investi - MARSHA P. J OHNSON AND gated (ibid.). Police officers were not only THE REMEDIATION OF AN distrusted for their inaction but also for LGBTQ+ I CON their own role in brutalising trans women, On July 6, 1992, the body of Marsha P. adding to the generalised outrage. Unsur - Johnson washed up on the Hudson River’s prisingly, Marsha’s drowning was never of - Christopher Street Piers. Born on August ficially resolved. 24, 1945, Marsha moved to Thanks to trans rights activist Mariah in the mid-sixties and became known in the Lopez, the Manhattan District Attorney’s as a human rights ac - office reopened Marsha’s file in 2012 (Ja - tivist, drag performer, sex worker, and cobs 2012), which preceded several pro - Warhol muse. Marsha’s fame is intimately jects to bring her life and death back into linked with her participation in the 1969 the public eye. In 2012, a first documen - Stonewall riots. During a police crackdown, tary featuring Marsha’s friends was released CONSTRUCTING INJUSTICE SYMBOLS IN CONTEMPORARY TRANS RIGHTS ACTIVISMS 35

Figure 9

under the title Pay It No Mind: Marsha P. Cruz as she investigates Marsha’s cold case, Johnson (Kasino 2012). In 2015, Marsha thus seemingly borrowing from the true- was portrayed in the drama Stonewall (Em - crime genre to make the story more palat - merich 2015), a movie that received exten - able for Netflix audiences (Lee 2017). sive backlash for making a white and Overall, France’s documentary somewhat straight-acting fictional character the insti - succeeds in addressing the discrimination gator of the 1969 riots (Barnes 2015). A faced by trans women both in- and outside fictional short film called Happy Birthday the LGBTQ+ community. It also draws Marsha! (Gossett and Wortzel 2018), de - clear parallels between Marsha’s unjust picting the hours leading to the Stonewall death and patterns of trans murders that riots through the Johnson/Rivera relation - have persisted into the 21 st century. How - ship, started production in 2015. Impor - ever, the movie was criticised for failing to tantly, Netflix’s feature documentary The reflect on gender identity at the intersec - Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson tion of social class and race (Iovannone (France 2017) gained international recog - 2017). Furthermore, Happy Birthday Mar - nition in 2017 and (re)introduced Marsha sha! directors Sasha Wortzel and Reina to LGBTQ+ and mainstream audiences. Gossett (a black trans woman) accused France’s documentary relies on two in - France (a cisgender, white gay man) of us - terweaving narratives. One, it uses archive ing their research without attribution (Ar - footage of LGBTQ+ protests from the late mus 2017), spawning debates as to “who 1960s to the early 1990s and interviews owns Marsha P. Johnson’s story” (Juzwiak Marsha’s friends and siblings to underline 2017). Controversies aside, the Death and her (and Sylvia Rivera’s) crucial role in the Life documentary played a key role in re - Liberation Movement. Two, it follows mediating Marsha’s iconicity by labelling trans rights activist and counsellor Victoria her as the ‘Queen of the Village’, a ‘hero’, 36 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019

Figure 10

a ‘veteran’, as well as the ‘icon’, ‘mother’, ways, and within new temporal, geographi - or ‘’ of the LGBTQ+ move - cal and cultural contexts. France’s (2017) ment. documentary demonstrates this process ef - Since her recent reappropriation by the fectively. #TransLivesMatter and LGBTQ+ move - While increasing media attention en - ments, Marsha has been the subject of an abled the remediation of Marsha’s iconicity, increasing number of images, GIFs, and it also introduced counter-discourses that artistic renditions (see Figures 10 and 11). contested her legitimacy or authenticity as During the US Pride of 2017 and 2018 in the face of the trans rights movement and, particular, memes circulated on social me - more broadly, of the LGBTQ+ movement. dia to showcase Marsha’s activism, com - On Facebook, some users repeatedly insist - memorate her death, and demand protec - ed that Marsha should not be appropriated tion for trans women of colour and for the by trans rights activists, claiming that she LGBTQ+ community more broadly, thus identified as a gay drag performer. Other attesting to her revitalised status as both a individuals aimed to discredit Marsha’s symbol of injustice and icon for Western legacy by invoking often racist, transpho - LGBTQ+ communities. As argued by Ole - bic, or whorephobic arguments that ques - sen (2015), symbols and icons are socially tioned her iconicity altogether (i.e. a trans created artefacts that eventually acquire in - person, a person of colour or a sex worker dependent existence in social reality. Once should not be selected as a spokesperson visually resurrected, these artefacts can be for the entire LGBTQ+ community). This invoked discursively in (re)contextualised social media commentary reminds that the CONSTRUCTING INJUSTICE SYMBOLS IN CONTEMPORARY TRANS RIGHTS ACTIVISMS 37 construction of icons is never static and POSTHUMOUS SYMBOLS AND that authenticity claims are always contest - THEIR CONTENTIONS WITHIN ed. Instead, they are collectively remediated TRANS ACTIVISM by a variety of actors, which is precisely As shown above, each of our case studies what enables them to acquire new (and highlights how trans rights activists make sometimes competing) meanings and ac - grief politically productive through the de - complish different effects over time and velopment of communicative practices that cross-culturally. For if icons are never fixed, contest the status quo as to whose deaths it is precisely because they come into being and losses deserve to be mourned. While and are sustained through discursive strug - these cases bring up and are shaped by im - gles, a quality that makes them inherently portant local issues (like pro-nationalist Fil - political. ipino sentiment, Turkish anti-secularism, or

Figure 11 38 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019 anti-black and queer police brutality in the movements, our analysis suggests that their US), the construction of these killings as construction have specific implications for injustice symbols also enact global trends in trans rights activism, namely, because of the trans rights activism. In each case, ritualised inherent intersectional identities of the forms of practices emerged posthumously trans individuals being commemorated (De as a motif of resistance and commemora - Vries 2012). While the marginality of tion through the use of digitally mediated racialised trans women – the fact that they visuals depicting the deceased alongside exist at the margins of intersecting social hashtags like #JusticeForJennifer , #Justice - spheres – makes them strategic figures for ForHande , and #JusticeForMarsha as an in - activists to address an array of sociopolitical dication of solidarity, whether that injustice causes (misogyny, transphobia, whorepho - relates to the nature of the committed bia, racism, colonialism, anti-secularism, crimes (the particularly brutal killings of sexual oppression, freedom of expression, Jennifer and Hande for example) or to the etc.), it simultaneously makes these sym - inability of the legal system to treat these bolic processes increasingly contentious. deaths fairly or effectively. Here, the injus - Contentions not only appear in broader de - tice – and, eventually, the increasing con - bates among sympathisers and detractors as tention – lies in the consideration that to whether these women should be at - transphobia and/or ‘whorephobia’ played a tributed visibility and sociopolitical impor - central role in these deaths (on whorepho - tance to begin with, but also among sym - bia, see Bruckert and Chabot 2014). pathisers who fight on their own end over To contest, join, and bring visibility to what type of visibility and meaning should these injustices, activists developed shared be attributed to them. communicative practices that gradually and In our case studies, the commemoration visually (re)constructed Jennifer, Hande, and political appropriation of racialised trans and Marsha as icons who symbolise the women reflect important custody battles grievances of an emerging transnational over what their deaths should symbolise and movement for trans rights. Our compara - how they should be made politically pro - tive analysis points to broader patterns in ductive. Conflicting strategies arise among the increasing importance of mediated sympathisers, who either strategically reduce forms of death and mourning in digital ac - the deceased as ‘single-issue’ politics to fit tivist cultures. Indeed, these practices relate their own agenda or celebrate them as inter - to several grassroot initiatives, like the sectional symbols. Thus, while increased vis - Black Lives Matter movement among oth - ibility can participate in making trans lives ers, where popular representations of mar - appear and therefore matter, visibility tyrs (Buckner and Khatib 2014) or icons should not be understood as an inherently (Mortensen 2017) are resurrected and mo - positive or conclusive feature, as single-issue bilised in the face of oppressive policies or visibility can contribute to historical forms regimes. The similarities within these ongo - of racial and/or trans erasure in (queer) ing trends and their reliance on digital me - politics (Lamble 2008; Ferguson 2019). As dia technologies highlight the emergence shown in our case studies, scholars not only of global templates that formalise the ways need to address how racialised trans women in which visual acts of resistance operate are being made (in)visible; they also need to across contemporary activist cultures. investigate how they are made to matter, by However, these communicative practices, whom, and with what objectives. while analogous, must simultaneously be There is little doubt that Marsha’s recen t examined in context. Indeed, if injustice (re)mediation as an LGBTQ+ icon increased symbols are part of several sociopolitical her profile posthumously. However, this has CONSTRUCTING INJUSTICE SYMBOLS IN CONTEMPORARY TRANS RIGHTS ACTIVISMS 39 sometimes been performed at the expense staged Jennifer’s dead body in her work - of the racial and gender components of her place (the motel’s bathroom, where she intersectional identities. Indeed, there are met with her customers), thus overtly re - struggles over the visual construction of an vealing the horrific violence and conditions ‘authentic’ Marsha, who is alternately de - with which sex workers – and trans sex picted as marching in the streets with a workers in particular – deal on a regular ba - poster in hand (Marsha, the outraged black sis. While the omission of these post- trans activist) or as flashing a benevolent mortem pictures could be partly explained smile while wearing a floral headdress by religious and cultural norms, it also (Marsha, the saint of the LGBTQ+ move - points to the erasure of the whorephobic ment). While both visual narratives do in - and trans-specific conditions that partici - deed contribute in making Marsha more pated in Jennifer’s death in favour of a sin - visible and iconic, the former depicts her gle (and seemingly more consensual) narra - with a high level of political proficiency, tive surrounding Filipino citizenship and while the latter constitutes an aestheticised anti-US imperialism. and somewhat apolitical depiction that is Thus, even among those who grant trans more palatable (and less menacing) for persons visibility, contentions emerge over mainstream and homonormative publics. the most strategic or authentic ways of In opposition, most visuals of Hande making them politically productive in that circulate online and in embodied death. To that effect, the construction of protests clearly depict her as an activist injustice symbols within transnational icon, while candid shots of her have been movements for trans rights is not simply used more scarcely. This is not surprising, about seeing or being seen. It also refers to since the visual construction of Hande as the visual and discursive processes that re - an engaged citizen fits and bridges the po - flect and are constitutive of the inherent in - litical agendas of LGBTQ+ and mainstream tersectional identities of trans persons (and political organisations that all seek to over - of racialised trans women in particular). In throw – or at least heavily criticise – this context, scholars and activists not only Turkey’s oppressive regime. While this need to consider that trans lives matter; strategic synergy did allow for Hande’s they need to address how they are made to death to gain visibility, the act of character - matter, by enabling (or concealing) which ising Hande as a symbol who represents components of their intersectional identi - ‘all’ Turkish citizens fighting against state ties, while also investigating how trans ac - repression can also potentially conceal the tors can remain the producers and benefi - gender specific and whorephobic condi - ciaries of these increasingly visual, digitally tions that amounted to her death. mediated, and intersectional narratives. Similar struggles were observed during Jennifer’s case whose death was used to symbolise Filipino grievances against US occupation. In the mainstream media, Jen - nifer was often depicted as a pretty and NOTES passable woman, humanising strategies that 1. Some believe that Marsha was the first to throw relied on the use of candid selfies or pic - a shot glass against the wall, often referred to as tures showing familial grief. Inversely, the “the shot glass that was heard around the world”, a claim that was refuted by Marsha herself (France pictures of Jennifer’s brutally beaten body 2017). were scarcely used by the press, even after 2. To rectify this, wrote a having been released by her family mem - retroactive obituary on Marsha’s death in its 2018 bers. The post-mortem pictures clearly commemorative series Overlooked (Chan 2018). 40 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019

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