NORTHAMPTON — A memorial for Christa Leigh Steele-Knudslien, a transgender activist with deep connections to the Pioneer Valley, will be held at the Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence on Saturday.
Steele-Knudslien, 42, was killed Jan. 4 in her North Adams home. Her husband, Mark Steele-Knudslien, allegedly told police that he killed her. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and is being held without right to bail.
Ben Power, a longtime friend of Steele-Knudslien, said Steele-Knudslien first moved to the area in 2005, because she had heard that trans people were moving to the state.
“She wanted a community for herself,” said Power, of Holyoke, who is the executive director of the Sexual Minorities Educational Foundation.
The two met in 2006, when Steele-Knudslien reached out to him about the existence of a support group for trans women, because Power was hosting a support group for trans men. Power said the two bonded over shared experiences of hard childhoods, poverty and anti-trans discrimination.
“We struck up a conversation that lasted for hours on the first day,” Power said.
Steele-Knudslien and Power were among the people who helped organize the first New England Transgender Pride March and Rally in Northampton in June 2008.
The Rev. Yohah Ralph is another friend of Steele-Knudslien’s who was among the organizers. A United Church of Christ minister, he has been tasked with officiating her memorial service.
Ralph first met Steele-Knudslien when he attended her wedding to her first husband, John Hilfers.
In remembering Steele-Knudslien, Ralph noted how positive she was, as well as her love of makeup and clothing.
“She was a high femme,” Ralph said.
Ralph also noted how Steele-Knudslien promoted living proudly and openly as a trans woman.
Part of her activism around this issue involved creating the first trans beauty pageant in New England, Miss Trans Northampton.
Steele-Knudslien first held the pageant in 2009 at the Northampton Center for the Arts, and Power was one of the judges.
“I cannot tell you what a blast that event was,” Power said.
The winner of that competition was Lorelei Erisis, who’d moved to the Northampton area in 2008 from Southern California. Erisis had started transitioning there in 2007, but had seen friends fall away in Los Angeles, and then feared for her life after she moved to San Diego.
Erisis said Northampton was a place she felt safe walking down the street.
“That’s rare,” she said. “Especially then.”
Erisis said this was also the reason behind Steele-Knudslien’s move.
“Western Mass. is a place where she could just be a woman,” she said. “There’s not a lot of places you can do that.”
Still, after she moved, Erisis was not able to find work, so she got involved in trans activism. That’s how she met Steele-Knudslien and how she came to enter the pageant.
“The pageant was her baby,” said Erisis, who praised Steele-Knudslien as a really strong organizer.
Tynan Power met Steele-Knudslien while covering that first pageant for The Rainbow Times, an LGBTQ newspaper.
“Definitely a huge figure here,” said Power, of Northampton.
He noted Steele-Knudslien’s visible leadership role in local activism, and said she sought, through her pageant, to lift people up who were struggling .
“She did an amazing job,” he said.
Ralph noted how Steele-Knudslien wanted the American dream, which he characterized as containing a home, central heating, pets and a husband.
Steele-Knudslien and Hilfers’ marriage ended in divorce. Mark and Christa Steele-Knudslien were married in April of last year, and her father, who lives in Minnesota, helped with the renovations of their North Adams home.
“She was nesting, really,” Ralph said, although he noted that he’d only seen the new place on social media.
“She strongly identified as just a woman,” Erisis said.
At the same time, Erisis noted that Steele-Knudslien was proud of being trans.
“She never distanced herself at all from her trans identity,” Erisis said.
Steele-Knudslien transformed Miss Trans Northampton into Miss Trans New England before the second pageant was held in 2010, providing Erisis a new sash and crown.
“I’ve been collecting titles like a South American dictator,” said Erisis, noting that while she only won that first pageant, her pageant career has resulted in her being given two crowns, a tiara and three sashes.
Still, Erisis noted that the regalia has had a practical use. As Miss Trans New England, she used her position to further her activism on behalf of trans causes. Indeed, her activism got her an invite to the White House during the Obama administration.
“Sadly, I didn’t meet Obama,” she said.
Erisis also said that so many of her performing and activist connections were made through Steele-Knudslien.
Steele-Knudslien was in the process of transforming Miss Trans New England into Miss Trans America when she was killed. Indeed, she had given herself the first such title, although Power and Erisis said her intention was to put on a full pageant.
“She wanted it to be a thing that people recognized,” Erisis said.
Steele-Knudslien’s resourcefulness was also something her friends remembered about her. Power noted that she was living in a van when she first came to western Massachusetts, before getting an apartment in Ware. By the time she died, she had become a homeowner.
Her tendency to both fall out with and make up with others was also recounted.
Neither Ralph, Tynan, Power nor Erisis said that they’d seen any warning signs about her relationship with Mark Steele-Knudslien, although none of them was in regular in-person contact with her when she was living in North Adams.
Power said that when he had been introduced to Mark in June, the last time he saw Steele-Knudslien alive, she was overjoyed at having married him.
Steele-Knudslien is the first known trans woman to be slain in the United States in 2018, and the first woman killed in a domestic violence incident in Massachusetts this year.
One nonprofit that directly combats domestic violence against people of all genders and sexualities in the Pioneer Valley is Safe Passage.
Safe Passage Executive Director Marianne Winters said that risk factors for domestic violence include isolation, substance abuse and economic issues. She also said that denial is another factor in domestic violence.
“Most people can’t imagine that it could happen to them,” she said.
Additionally, Winters said that the risk can be even greater with marginalized groups, particularly those with a historically negative relationship with the police.
She said that when people think about violence against LGBTQ people, they don’t always think of violence within relationships. She also said that transgender people have been historically hesitant to seek help on these issues. Winters said Safe Passage is working on a project to make it easier for trans folks to seek out help with domestic violence.
Tynan noted the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, which says that 54 percent of respondents experienced some form of intimate partner violence, and 35 percent experienced physical violence by an intimate partner, compared to 30 percent of the U.S. adult population. Twenty-four percent experienced severe physical violence by a current or former partner, compared with 18 percent of the U.S. population.
“It’s really a staggering number,” Tynan said.
Ralph, Erisis and Tynan are all participating in the planning for the memorial. Ralph said he expects 50 to 200 people to show up, while both Erisis and Tynan said they expected attendance to be around the 200 mark.
Ralph said the ceremony will feature multiple voices as well as two or three musical performers. It will also touch on Steele-Knudslien’s Christian faith.
The Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence is at 220 Main St. in Northampton. The memorial will begin at 11 a.m.
As for Power, he said he is organizing a protest on Feb. 7 in North Adams against the killing of trans people. He said that in the days after Steele-Knudslien’s death, he would involuntarily say “Oh God” to himself, and that he still sometimes has moments when he can’t believe his friend is dead. He also related how, on New Year’s Eve, Steele-Knudslien texted him a rainbow GIF. Four days later, his friend was dead.
Power said he is putting his grief into organizing the protest, which will assemble at 9 a.m. outside Northern Berkshire District Court in North Adams, and make its way to Steele-Knudslien’s house.
“We’re going to be responding loudly,” he said.
Those experiencing domestic violence can reach out to Safe Passage at its 24/7 hotline at 413-586-5066.
“Please reach out,” said Winters.