Recently a friend and Anglican priest colleague posted on his social media accounts around November 20th, the Transgender Day of Remembrance. He shared about how his goddaughter, a trans teen, committed suicide a few years ago after struggling so much in her life with the unique challenges of being a trans person. If you're not sure what this day is about, here's a description:
Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) was started in 1999 by transgender advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith as a vigil to honor the memory of Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was killed in 1998. The vigil commemorated all the transgender people lost to violence since Rita Hester’s death, and began an important tradition that has become the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance.
“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
Trans people face significantly higher rates of violence. A recent study at UCLA Law School finds that transgender people are 4x as likely to experience violence, including sexual assault, as cisgender people. Survivors are 'doubly victimized' as these crimes are generally underreported in the media. This Day of Remembrance is intended to honour these lives and bring awareness to those in the LGTBIQ+ community who are fighting for the right to simply exist.
GLAAD is the leading advocacy organization for this group and they have some great resources on these subjects: https://glaad.org/transweek/
And if you feel you know very little about this community, please go to this link that shares individual stories of trans people: https://glaad.org/releases/glaad-and-ground-media-launch-national-transgender-focused-psa-campaign-here-we-are/
This "Here We Are" campaign is intended to help us put a face on these issues and gently exposes us to those who may differ from our understandings of gender. Here is an example of one of them I'd encourage you to check out:
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