Day 19: Wrapped in a Flag

One week into the takeover, it was my birthday, and on that day, a patient at Syracuse V.A. Medical Center died by apparent suicide.

A woman spotted the body hanging outside the top of the hospital’s parking garage.

The person was wrapped in a body-length transgender flag.

The person’s identity has not been released, to maintain their privacy, and allow the investigation to proceed.

The article states “The transgender veteran hanged themselves by jumping from the garage…”

And I want you to think about that.

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In all the chaos of this country, the cruelty being inflicted on so many people, I was still having a birthday, made quieter by the fact that I had deactivated my Facebook account on Inauguration Day. You really find out who actually knows when your birthday is when Facebook isn’t there to remind them to post a cake emoji on your timeline.

But on this day, which was ONE WEEK into the dictatorship, and the day I sort-of celebrated being one year older; a person, a veteran, who was transgender, lost hope.

And they wrapped themselves in a body-length transgender flag.

And they hanged themselves.

As far as we know. And I’m not implying anything by that.

In 2022, suicide rates among veterans were roughly double that of civilians.

In a study conducted by the Trevor Project, it was found that suicide rates among transgender people increase by as much as 72% when laws are passed that target them.

The person who died had been discharged from inpatient psychiatry on January 21^st, and was found dead on January 27^th.

And to repeat, they wrapped themselves in a transgender flag.

I repeat this, because it was a person. One person.

And they wrapped themselves in a transgender flag.

We do not know the identity of the person who died, we don’t know how they dressed, what they looked like. We don’t know their sex assigned at birth. We don’t know where they were in their transition. We don’t know what pronouns they used.

Perhaps they/them. Perhaps not. We don’t know if the article is using they/them because those are the person’s pronouns, or because they don’t know their gender identity.

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When a person is out of sight, maybe wrapped in a flag, and you have nothing to go on that would lead you to say he or him or she or her, you say they but it is singular.

And it’s worth thinking about when you insist that everyone must be he or she. That the second you see what a person looks like, you know their gender. And it must be him or her.

If you’re still hung up on the notion that grammar prevents you from using they/them as someone’s pronouns, repeat to yourself the phrase,

And they wrapped themselves in a transgender flag.

Photo by Kyle on Unsplash