6 December - in honour and remembrance of The 14

I'll never forget where I was when I learned about the Montreal Massacre.

Dec 6, 1989 was 9 days after my 17th birthday and I was 7 and a half months pregnant. It was snowing outside. It was a Wednesday, and my boyfriend and I had finished our workday and returned to his BC Housing suite in East Van. We found his mother sitting in the living room, quietly crying as she watched the news. We sat with her and we all watched in silence as the details of the horror unfolded through the news reports. I held my belly, absorbed the devastation, and wondered fearfully about the world I'd be bringing my first child into.

I grieve, honour and remember these 14 women, who died because a misogynist decided to execute them in their classrooms. I honour and remember the too-many missing, murdered indigenous girls and women - in Canada and all over the world. I honour and remember all sex-workers - cis and trans - who fall victim to murderous predators because society vilifies their means of survival and government systemically denies their safety, dignity and rights.

There are many days - too many days - in the calendar year to mark the memory of women killed as a result of male-perpetrated violence (cultural and otherwise), and all around the world. Honouring these memories does not mean that anyone suggests for a minute that men suffer no violence.

I despair at the pissing contests that arise on days like these, and in times like these... the "my holocaust is worse than yours" and the endless talking points games (i.e. "regarding this most recent mass shooting, should we call it 'terrorism' or something else?" or "what about men in relationships with abusive women? where are the transition houses for them?"). It's not that I can't just as easily fall into these debates myself (they're called "hot button issues" for a reason). I would simply hope that somber reflection on the ongoing senseless loss of life isn't lost in the endless, contentious static.

Because I am a woman who has experienced male-perpetrated violence in my own life, and because I've also brought two girls into this world, I recognize the statistical over-representation of women (including trans-women) killed by men. I observe the too-many calendar-days that mark particular historical incidents that illustrate this gender-specific reality. In doing so, I neither ignore nor minimize the violence men and boys experience. Numbers aside, I despair equally for the violence we ALL experience, every fucking day.

Dec 6, however, is the anniversary of that time a guy who resented and hated women went into a school in Montreal and executed 14 of them. It's impossible that I could ever forget, and I hope the memory of these women and every awful thing their murder represents stays crystal clear and forefront amidst all the political static.