Speaking out against the recent attacks on transgendered women in DC, panelists at a forum Thursday urged the diverse audience members to join together in the face of the violence. In the past week, two women have been killed and a third victim is in critical condition; two of the attacks were on Wednesday night.

"We need to involve progressives, elected officials, and organizers in our communities to speak out and act on the murders," counseled Larry, an activist with Latino/a LGBT communities. "This is everyone's business. We need to get mad. Unfortunately, we needed someone's blood on the street in order to get mad, but let's not let that blood be wasted...we need to get organized and do something."

The forum, "Queering the Color Lines: LGBT Communities of Color & Allies Organizing for Justice," addressed visions and ways of building a progressive, inclusive social movement for change and was part of a weekend of events commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington.

Human Rights not Gay Rights

Many of the presenters spoke about the unique position of queer communities of color as members of a minority within a minority, the connections between of various social justice struggles and the need for the various LGBT communities of color to join together as allies.

Al-Fatiha organizer Faisal Alam explained how his view of gay rights is different from that of most mainstream gay & lesbian organizations; Alam supports a broad movement that encompasses all social justice issues rather than narrow focus on primarily gay issues, such as same-sex marriage. Alam quoted from memory what he described as his favorite speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, "We're all tied together in a single garment of destiny.... I can never be what I want to be until you are allowed to be what you want to be."

Diana Campbell, a DC activist on the panel, disputed rumors that the black community is more homophobic than other communities. She noted that the differences are due to the way the black community has learned to dissociate in the face of oppression. Kevin Lee presented a different sort of problem, which faces the Asian & Pacific Islander (API) GLBT community. Since Asians are often considered the "model minority," few studies are conducted of the API community and therefore it's assumed that there are no queer people of API descent.

The event ended with a question-and-answer period, during which one of the event organizers asked panelists for a vision of a DC justice movement, a vision which the organizer said would be different from that of the DC Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance, who refused to cosponsor the event. Three of the panelists responded by stressing the importance of healing between organizers who have a history of ill will, overcoming burnout, and uniting various organizations to maximize power to address the conditions that allow brutal murders and other outrages against our communities.

Other events this weekend relating to LGBT issues include a free movie screening Friday of "Brother Outsider - The Life of Bayard Rustin," an LGBT contingent and march to the Bayard Rustin commemorative rally as part of the main 40th anniversary march Saturday, and book reading/signing of "Lost Prophet: The Life & Times of Bayard Rustin" with author John D'Emilio on Saturday evening. Visit www.southnewground.org/WhatsGoingOn.htm or www.marchonwashington.org for more information

Our apologies to the panelists for ommisions or mispellings of names. We didn't go to the event prepared to report on it.