This year, Cara spoke at PFLAG Benton-Franklin’s Transgender Day of Remembrance in Richland.
From the PFLAG website:
Each year, on and around November 20th, PFLAG joins in honoring the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), which began after the 1998 murder of Rita Hester.
The Transgender Day of Remembrance raises public awareness of hate crimes against transgender people, and offers an opportunity for us to gather together and publicly mourn the lives of our trans loved ones who might otherwise be forgotten.
PFLAG Benton-Franklin held a candlelight vigil to celebrate and mourn the lives of our transgender siblings who lost their lives this last year. Many visitors read aloud the names of individuals who died in 2024 while candles were lit in their honor. “This is a time to speak up, offer a space for our transgender family, and create a space where many voices can take the stage to honor their lives by sharing their names,” said a spokesperson for PFLAG Benton-Franklin. “We are honored to hold this space with you. You are loved, supported, and valued beyond belief!”
This was Cara’s speech.
I'm Cara Brigid Nokes. I'm a chef and business owner, I’m a wife, I’m a parent to five children, and I am a trans woman. I know that's known. I was invited to talk today because of my transness. I still want to say it, because I've spent the majority of my life too scared to say it.
But now, I am not afraid. I am a trans woman. When I said that the first time ten years ago, family, friends, doctors, and lawyers all told me I was wrong. They told me I needed to understand that the belief that I was transgender and needed to undergo a full transition was merely a symptom of my depression and addictions, and most certainly not a cause.
But I am a trans woman! It brings me so much joy to say that. It's what I want to talk about today — our joy. It's Trans Day of Remembrance, and it's so important for us to remember why we are here fighting for our rights to be ourselves, and the rights of all our siblings — brothers, sisters, and folks outside the binary — who have yet to join us out in the open. There is so much joy that comes from stripping ourselves from the expectations of others and their preconceived ideas of who we have to be.
Growing up, the closest thing to representation I had was a joke in Dude, Where's my Car? A joke in Ace Ventura. A victim in so many episodes of Law and Order. In fact, until I was 35, I had never had the opportunity to even speak to another trans woman. Now I have the privilege to talk to so many when they come see me at my truck. We all have two things in common: FEAR and JOY.
I know we are all scared today. I know we see this list of names of our brethren who have lost their lives, and worry that this time next year we could find ourselves on that list. I've been asked so many times: How do we go forward? How do we face that fear each and every day? How do we hold our heads up high when people are trying so hard to discredit our very existence? I can't speak for all of us, of course, but the only way forward I see is through our joy.
I LOVE who I am. I am still very young in my transition, and I am so alien. I don't have the words to explain how going from an extremely damned-good-looking man to who I am now brings me joy, but every morning I look in the mirror and see more of the woman I've felt inside myself all along. That is my joy. That alone is a joy worth fighting for.
Before I came out, I would watch the news and see trans folk fighting tooth and nail for our rights, as I sat scared in ‘boy mode’, jealous; because even though they had to be there fighting, they had the bravery to come out — to follow through and transition, and find that joy when I felt I couldn't. At the time, I knew inside who I was, but even my wife made mention of not understanding trans identities.
It was my joy that finally showed her.
After I came out, it was understandably hard on our relationship. Imagine having to tell the person who you've been through so much with that they have been seeing you through the wrong lens. The confident, strong man they loved was actually a very scared, insecure woman, desperate to break free. That I needed them to perceive me in a completely different way.
It happened getting ready for a date. It was a few months after coming out. I was still only Cara in secret, while we figured out how to move forward, but we decided to do everything we could to make our relationship continue. So, one day, we dropped the kiddos off at Grandma's house, and my wife took me to the store and helped me pick out an outfit for date night — my first outfit exclusively from the women's section. It wasn't really anything special — a pair of Lucky Brand jeans and a pink leopard print button-up shirt. I cannot even begin to describe the joy I felt putting them on. For the first time in my life, I saw this beautiful feminine appearance instead of the forced masculinity I had become so used to.
My wife credits the joy on my face in that moment with giving her the understanding of who I am — of who we are. She took me to dinner in that outfit, and our relationship finally knew how to move forward. We moved forward with joy — celebrating our uniqueness, embracing parts of our identity we got to discover at 36 (instead of in middle school with most of our peers).
So how do we move forward? We fight, we shout, we scream from the top of our lungs that those people who are afraid of us, who don't understand us, who believe we don't deserve a place in this world — they don't get to erase us. We use whatever means necessary to keep our joy alive. We scrape and scratch our way to the surface, even when we feel like we are drowning in hate.
We honor the brave people we are remembering today by not letting their names be forgotten. Whether we talk about Marsha throwing bricks and effectively starting PRIDE as we know it, or Nex who was killed just trying to go to the bathroom — we don't let a single death scare us back into hiding. We honor their joy in being themselves by continuing to find our own.
I will fight, because I am a trans woman — and I am going to say that as many times as I need to, as loudly as I need to, and with as much joy as I can muster — because our joy is worth fighting for. The smile I am finally not faking is worth fighting for (and taking on the whole fucking world for, if need be).
I am a trans woman, and I am filled with joy. My joy fuels my rage. My joy is everything for me and mine, and I will not be silent in my joy anymore.
Cara Nokes is a local business owner, a parent of five, and trans woman.
