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The Trans Day of Remembrance is November 20th this year. Normally, I don't make news posts about all of the awareness icons that show up on the sidebar, but this one is important enough to me that I need to.
This day was started by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, a trans activist, in memory of Rita Hester. She was a transgender woman killed in 1998. The day is a vigil for all of the transgender people killed in the previous year.
"The 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
This may not be a very fun topic for Aywas, but this our reality -- mine, yours, everyone's. While it's difficult to hold a vigil online, please at least look at the list of transgender people killed this past year and remember them, think of them, at least once during the upcoming twenty four hours.
I would really appreciate it.
I personally donated $100 to GLAAD in honor of the day.
You can pick up a Transgender Pride Flag from the Advent Calendar today.
Posted by JAK
(#15) on Thu Nov 20, 2014 12:03am
- Lunch & Obi
(#2021)
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Posted on: Thu Nov 20, 2014 3:02pm
Very sad and disheartening how old and young these people were killed/had died. Thank you for this awareness post.
- korn.
(#47019)
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Posted on: Thu Nov 20, 2014 3:29pm
Oh Alex Medeiros. You didn't even get a chance to find out who you were. Your father shouldn't have been able to take your life over this and make a choice that wasn't his. I would love my child no matter what. R.I.P.
I noticed so many of these violent deaths were in Brazil...
- Phantom Butterfly
(#14055)
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Posted on: Thu Nov 20, 2014 4:57pm
Awareness cannot always be a blessing. Some prefer to remain unaware.
I have collected the flag but shall not look at the list of the dead.
- Fnord 🍬 👻 💩
(#21141)
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Posted on: Thu Nov 20, 2014 5:35pm
Icey (#50938) said it best so I'll just point to their comment and echo all of it.
- LittleLionFire
(#62783)
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Posted on: Thu Nov 20, 2014 5:44pm
The world is a violent place, and there are violent people out there with big bias towards others. It is nice to have awareness of this out here, I do agree with Icey on the trigger warnings.
Things like this happen every day, and not all can be recorded. Thing is, we can do our best to accept, love, protect, and care for those we know, and even do not know. And not only Trans people. Homosexuals, those with brain trouble, and so many more.
People can be cruel, yet people can be loving and nice as well. It is a choice.
As for me, I choose to give my support. And say that you can feel whatever you feel because you are you and nobody else is you. And nobody has the right to tell you what to do.
Now after that little ramble wanna say I love you all in my own way.
Rest in peace to those who have died, regarding this issue and all others.
- Fluffy LL's
(#32873)
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Posted on: Thu Nov 20, 2014 5:55pm
This was interesting, but after reading the list and finding the majority happened in Brazil where honor killings are legal this doesn't surprise me. You will find the list of murdered, tortured and mutilated women to be very high as well in Brazil.
So very sad to see we have evolved so little and are such a barbaric species in general.
- Fnord 🍬 👻 💩
(#21141)
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Posted on: Thu Nov 20, 2014 6:01pm
...Okay, so, here's a silver lining. I read through the list and all the while was remembering reading similar lists in years past...
The problem in Brazil is indeed alarming and I think merits intervention from international human rights organizations. That's scary.
But the number in the United States has gone down some, and statistically now doesn't look much higher than the rate of murder for cis people. And unlike in previous years, West Coast states are almost entirely spared now (one in Los Angeles is all I'm seeing.)
It's nice to know that at least a few things are getting better.
I don't mean to shift the conversation to a US-centric one, just take a moment to digress and remind my fellow trans and gender-variant US citizens that for once we seem to be getting safer here.
- Fluffy LL's
(#32873)
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Posted on: Thu Nov 20, 2014 6:33pm
This was interesting, but after reading the list and finding the majority happened in Brazil where honor killings are legal this doesn't surprise me. You will find the list of murdered, tortured and mutilated women to be very high as well in Brazil.
So very sad to see we have evolved so little and are such a barbaric species in general.
- Fluffy LL's
(#32873)
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Posted on: Thu Nov 20, 2014 6:34pm
Sorry double post shouldn't have happened
Posted on: Thu Nov 20, 2014 2:30pm
Man... I started scrolling down that list, really sombered by all the deaths I was seeing... then glanced over at the scroll bar to realize I had only seen a very small portion of the list when I thought that must be over half of it... I can't believe that MANY. >.< So many horribly painful and humiliating deaths... that little child... it's such a slap in the face to realize what so many people in the world are like. But one that needs to be known.