Dear Neighbor,

On this Transgender Day of Remembrance, I join alongside community advocates and activists in Queens to honor the memory of our transgender neighbors whose lives were lost in acts of transphobia and violence.

The Human Rights Campaign recently reported that 2020 has already seen at least 34 transgender or gender non-conforming people fatally shot or killed by other violent means, the majority of which were Black and Latinx transgender women. 

Queens is a beacon of hope and safety to vulnerable groups fleeing discrimination and oppression. Today we stand in solidarity with the transgender community to reject transphobia across this nation and bring awareness to the barriers faced in pursuit of dignity and justice:

We must expand health care and civil rights protections for our transgender neighbors. On the four year anniversary of the Orlando massacre, the Trump administration finalized a regulation that erased protections for transgender patients against discrimination by doctors, hospitals and health insurance companies. We must immediately end these discriminatory policy tactics which exacerbate barriers to our nation’s healthcare system.

We must repeal the “Walking While Trans” ban. Our state’s anti-loitering statute targets our community’s sex workers, allowing officers to detain and arrest people for simply standing on the street. I strongly commit to repealing this policy and expanding opportunities in our state’s formal economy for TGNCIQ (transgender, gender nonconforming, intersex, and queer) New Yorkers.

We must end the violence. The American Medical Association declared violence against transgender people an epidemic in 2019, highlighting the alarming rates of physical violence faced by member of the transgender community. I commit to advocating for anti-transphobic policies in order to prevent bias, mistreatment, misinformation, and increase community trust.

New York must pave the way for equity and dignity for all our neighbors. 

We won't stop fighting until that vision becomes our reality.

In Solidarity, 

Jessica Ramos