[To be read by a transgender person.]
Hail to the queerness of my ancestors!
May the fruitful blessings of the sun shine on us your siblings. Though we are weary from fighting for lives, we intentionally make time to honor you. We honor the multiplicity of genders, and with great audacity we keep going, in spite of violence against our bodies, in spite of loss of life. May we rise up and choose to go on. If my name was to be read aloud on transgender day of remembrance — the day when we honor trans lives that have been lost to violence — I would want you to keep fighting.
If my name is to be read aloud next year, know that I want you to keep fighting. I want you to keep falling madly in love with your trans body.
Everyday we grieve the missing two-spirit* peoples of turtle island**, whose cases are never investigated. Two-spirit people have been disappearing for decades, never to be seen or heard from again. We recognize this loss. May their spirits find peace. We also grieve the loss of beautiful, intelligent, black and brown transgender women, many of whose names disproportionately make up our fallen. We hold them in our hearts.
[Omit the next sentence unless you plan to have an altar with photos.]
We place their photos [or “have placed their photos”] on the altar with the rest of our ancestors. Then [or “now”] we must return to the fight of our lives.
Though we traverse through the valley of the shadow of fascism, take heart beloveds. I promise I will not let you go. For my liberation is tied with your liberation.
Ashe, Blessed be, and Amen.
*Two-Spirit is a sacred, culturally specific umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe people who embody both masculine and feminine spirits. Originating as a translation of an Ojibwe term, it encompasses diverse gender and sexual identities within Native communities and is exclusive to Indigenous peoples. (More information from Tribal Court Clearinghouse [PDF].)
**Turtle Island is the original name of the land that has been colonized as the United States.