Transgender Day of Remembrance (or why I am sick of honoring the trauma instead of celebrating life)
"Transgender Day of Remembrance seeks to highlight the losses we face due to anti-transgender bigotry and violence. I am no stranger to the need to fight for our rights, and the right to simply exist is first and foremost. With so many seeking to erase transgender people -- sometimes in the most brutal ways possible -- it is vitally important that those we lose are remembered, and that we continue to fight for justice."
- Transgender Day of Remembrance founder Gwendolyn Ann Smith
Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) was started in 1999 by trans advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith to honor the loss of Rita Hester. Since that time, vigils have been held all over the world annually to honor transgender and gender expansive people whose lives were directly lost as a result of hate crimes.
This year is no different. We will grieve. We will reflect on lives lost for no reason other than another person’s inability to accept, understand, or just leave the fuck alone a person who was different than them. According to tdor.translivesmatter.org, internationally we will be speaking the names and honoring the lives of 460 individuals, 71 of whom were lost in the US. I would have hoped that the number would have decreased this year. We have had a significant change in administration, a win in Bostock vs Clayton County, the appointment of Assistant Secretary of Health Admiral Rachel L. Levine, MD but no, the death toll is 7% higher than 2020. According to transrespect.org TDoR data shows:
375 trans and gender-diverse people were murdered, 7% more than in the TMM update 2020
Cases from Greece, Kazakhstan, and Malawi were reported for the first time
96% of those murdered globally were trans women or transfeminine people
58% of murdered trans people whose occupation is known were sex workers
Murders of trans people in the United States have doubled from last year; people of colour make up 89% of the 53 trans people murdered
43% of the trans people murdered in Europe were migrants
70% of all the murders registered happened in Central and South America; 33% in Brazil
36% of the murders took place on the street and 24% in their own residence
The average age of those murdered is 30 years old; the youngest being 13 years old and the oldest 68 years old
I am tired. I am tired of reading the names of people who have died. I am tired of waking up and avoiding reading or watching the news for fear of learning about one more piece of legislation that seeks to kill me. Yes. Kill. Me. Every bathroom bill means another trans person is at risk for simply needing to pee. Every anti sports bill at best takes away a trans person’s ability to care for their body and mind through physical activity and at worst makes the locker room and playing field a place that invites violence. Every time a bill is introduced or passed that denies children the right to gender affirming care we are endorsing suicide and risking that a trans child will not grow up to become a trans elder, something we have very few of. Every time the Equality Act is pushed back into the House or Senate what they are saying is that trans lives do not matter, we are not worth the very basic dignity of human rights. I. AM. TIRED. You should be tired too, and if you are cisgender, you should ALSO be taking action.
But...I am alive and so are my transgender friends, colleagues and clients. We have our lives. We have the ability to speak out these 71 names:
Now that you have read these names, what is one thing you can do differently in your professional life and in your personal life to help reduce the risk of one more unnecessary death?