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Transgender Day of Remembrance

Jill

Yesterday* was Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day to remember and memorialize those who have been killed because of transphobia, and to bring attention to the damage transphobia does to trans and gender-nonconforming people. You can find events and information here.

Transphobia kills. Here are just some of the people who we’re memorializing this year.

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*Ed note: This was supposed to go up yesterday, but I set the timing wrong.

8 thoughts on Transgender Day of Remembrance

  3. I’m really angry about how Trans* Day of Remembrance went down in Sydney this year. Many of the people I know held private memorials because the two major events (one of which was held by politicians and the police) were being used to promote people’s pet projects rather than memorialising the dead.

    The little mainstream media coverage TDoR got described it as, and I shit you not here, “Trans Day of Awareness, which is also a day for trans* men to fundraise for surgery”, which went uncorrected by the white trans* man they interviewed, who proceeded to use the piece to promote a documentary about himself he was making.

    It’s really aggravating how frequently the gendered and racialised aspects of transphobic violence get glossed over. Overwhelmingly the list of the dead consists of trans* women and trans* people of colour (and obviously class and sex worker status play a role here as well).

    I found this piece by Monica Maldonado really powerful and necessary if people are interested in reading it. Content warning for explicit descriptions of violence and some pretty heinous transphobia.

    1. Wow Li. . .that’s so fucked up it’s almost funny. But it’s not funny. Luckily, things in Portland were pretty good this Tuesday, and as I understand it, they’ve actually been improving a fair bit from years past. There were two main events in town this year. One of them was put on by Portland State University, and the featured speaker was Janet Mock, a Black trans woman journalist and activist. There were a couple hundred people there to hear her speak, and she gave a really wonderful presentation that specifically focused not only on the sort of horrific violence that’s killed and brutalized trans women of color, but on the LIVING trans women of color activists who are making a difference in the world today. I really appreciated that she focused on how trans women (and especially trans women of color) do have value beyond just being dead bodies that can be used to generate “awareness,” since that often seems to be how the broader LGBT movement sees our chief purpose as being. Although, of course, memorializing the dead is super important, too.

      1. That sounds really excellent. I read Janet Mock’s interview with Colorlines a few days ago and I was really struck by how thoughtful about processes of representation she is (even for a journalist, who in my idealised view of the profession should be pretty aware of this stuff but who are somehow often amazingly terrible at it despite being media insiders).

  4. Just wanted to stop for a moment to give thanks for those who live, to memorialize those taken from us, and to commit to making the years ahead better. My best wishes for your health, happiness, and safety, trans* folks of Feministe.

  5. Something that bothers me about many TDoR events is how so much emphasis is placed on transgender “people” being victims of violence. But overwhelmingly, it is trans women in particular who are the victims. Overwhelmingly, is it men who are the perpetrators. Yet too often the gendered nature of this does not get discussed, even on feminist blogs. We need to emphasize that transphobic violence is overwhelmingly male violence against trans women, violence rooted in misogyny.

  6. Nthing the general sentiment in the thread about the minimization of racism and transmisogyny. Natalie Reed posted an excellent intro-reading set of links here, for those who are interested in learning more: http://freethoughtblogs.com/nataliereed/2012/11/20/transgender-day-of-remembrance/

    I don’t have any words to express how angry I am, how sad I am, about the fucked-up-beyond-recognition kyriarchy and how it enables murderers.

    Especially coming to this from the thread next door. My soul hurts from the juxtaposition.

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