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Friend:
Over the past year in the United States, at least 22 transgender and gender non-conforming people have been killed. Ninety-one percent of these people were black transgender women, and sixty-eight percent lived in Southern states. Globally, the number of trans folks killed this year is close to 300. Please read their names here.
Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance, the most solemn day of the year for LGBTQ people and our many allies who mourn the lives lost to anti-transgender violence and hate. Far too many of our trans siblings have been killed simply because they had the courage and bravery to be who they are. Our team at the Campaign for Southern Equality sends our love, peace, and solidarity to all people who are hurting today.
Violence against transgender people, particularly trans women of color and especially in the South, is an epidemic.
Every year on November 20, we come together to mourn the losses that our community endures – and that is critically important. But even as we center lives lost to violence and push toward an end to this epidemic, we also must be sure to not allow the trans community to be exclusively defined by tragedy and despair. That’s why we join so many worldwide in additionally lifting up November 20 as Transgender Day of Resilience, which the Movement Building & Cultural Strategy Team at Forward Together calls “an extension and re-imaging of Transgender Day of Remembrance.” The organization writes, “It is critical that we honor and support trans people of color while they are alive, and not only in memoriam.”
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