The following is a piece I wrote when the trial of Angie Zapata’s murder was first commencing. Recently, Allen Andrade was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/us/23transgend.html

Did anyone ever call me it?

This is the question that crosses through my head as I search through the interactions that I let roll off me, or perhaps through me. Yes, someone certainly has called me it before.

When you become an object you inherently become an it: an unnatural piece of the surroundings; curtains that do not match the sofa so you light them ablaze.

It was what Angie Zapata’s murderer referred to her as. She was murdered last August when a man who she met on the internet discovered she was a transsexual. He murdered her and called her it.

The media did not call her it, just made implications. They told her birth name and birth assigned gender and did not validate the murder, but did not invalidate it. They never said it was an invitation, but they never said it was not her fault. This made her an object, a confused-looking vase in the corner no one quite knew how to feel about.

The fact I am a performer dressed all in yellow, acting as a statue is not the most significant aspect of my being, just the most obvious. When people sneak close, eyes poised for any movement, a blink or a breath, they take in more than they bargained for. This yellow statue is quite androgynous. Everyone seems to notice in their own distinct ways, for the most part the whimsy is not spoiled. Yet, there are the moments where arguments break out, a college boy making passes at me, a religious fanatic condemns me by reading the bible to me for an hour, and I am examined for body hair. This performance was not intended to be so challenging or, daresay, political.

Any unique body tends to attract such attention though, like a shiny new toy or a car crash.

No, the mainstream’s media did not blame Angie Zapata for her own murder unless you cared to read between the lines. Bringing up her past, deliberately using the wrong pronouns, and other actions taken to undermine her female identity mark her as a deceiver. When you question whether or not this was a hate crime, you are questioning the victims validity. This is the cycle that allow an it to be created, manifested in the imagination of normal.

Myself as a statue was a reversal of my usual interactions with people around gender. I am called it and other name under breathes instead of to my face. People search for clues out of peripheral vision as opposed to inches from skin. It is clear that I am a performer from the start when painted yellow, but I am not painted transgender and this is not a performance. It is assumed to be so it often becomes one.

Normalcy is defined as much: by what it is not as opposed to what it is.

This is why people feel entitled to examine my androgynous body whether performing on the streets or going about my day in public. Becoming the gaudy ceramic elephant in the room that eyes can not seem to turn away from. And this sparks discomfort and fear that leads to being taunted, threatened, and followed. And while I never intentionally set myself among their objects, they will barge their way into body, a battering ram.

And he called her it.

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portrait of  Angie Zapata painted in public the week of Transgender Remembrance Day 2008 along with the portraits of other transpeople murdered in the past year.

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