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Transgender Activist Found Dead
DanVeg (Photo: Facebook)
DanVeg, a known transgender queer activist, took her own life on Friday, leaving the Israeli LGBTQ community in shock.
“DanVeg has fought for many years,” wrote her friends in the announcement of her passing, “She fought transphobia and homophobia, she fought against sexism, racism and boredom, and like many of us, she fought with chasms of depression and thoughts of suicide, to which our society stubbornly pushes anyone who dares to defy its gender rules.”
DanVeg, originally from Petach Tikva, took her own life on Friday night. The funeral was held on Sunday. Her friends, who shared an apartment with her in Rehovot, sit Shiva and welcome anyone who cared about her, as of Monday.
“Rest in mess and noise,” her roommate wrote, “because peace and quite was never your thing.”
In 2014, DanVeg lead a protest against taxi drivers who refused to take passengers because of physical appearance. Her latest contribution to the community was writing and editing Wikipedia entries related to the LGBT community. Two weeks ago she completed her last entry, about organization Aleph, a known 1990’s lesbian Israeli organization.
“I insist on standing out and being seen for that transqueer boy who told me how much courage I gave him, or the genderqueer girl who is empowered by it,” DanVeg once wrote on her blog. “I want them to see me and know I exist. I don’t want to lie to them and tell them that it’s easy. It’s not. It’s very hard and sometimes it’s unbearable and impossible. People are stupid, ignorant and fearful and full of hatred and violence, and you will have to face it. But I’d like you to know, I’d like to shout it, I’d like to spray it on the walls and engrave it on tables and write it and say it, and repeat it and vomit it and cry it: You are not alone. You are not alone! You are f**ing not alone!!!”
DanVeg is the fourth known case of transgender suicide in the past year and a half. In September 2015 Victoria Alexandrina Kagan, a trans immigrant to Israel took her on life shortly after her birthday; May Peleg, a prominent Israeli activist, was found dead in November 2015 in a motel in Jerusalem; In December 2015 Barak Keshet, a 21 year old, took his own life.