Holding Transgender Day of Remembrance as a Light for the Ostracized and Despised

 

Note--For a year when fear stalks the transgender, gender non-conforming people as well as their families and circles of loved ones as never before, it is important to take and give solace today.  This post is updated from previous versions.

Maybe because their names and faces get lost in the grim glut of crime reporting. Maybe because no one knew their story—or their secret.  Maybe it’s because the Guardians at the gate want to protect our tender sensibilities.  Maybe it’s because outside of “those people” no one cares.  Or maybe it’s because some see a kind of rough justice acted out on the streets and prefer to let it go on as they used to whistle-by-the-graveyard the dark at lynchings that kept Black folk in their place.

Globally according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report for 2024:

Attacks based on Gender Identity Up 16% from Prior Year, Those Based on Sexual Orientation Up23%...More than 1 in 5 hate crimes are motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ bias....that there were 2,402 recorded incidents relating to an alleged victim’s sexual orientation in 2023, up from 1,947 the year before, and 547 relating to an alleged victim’s gender identity, compared with 469 the year before. The gender identity category included 401 instances that were specifically anti-transgender and 146 that targeted someone who was gender nonconforming....For the second year in a row, more than 1 in 5 of any type of hate crime is now motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ bias.

 

The actual numbers are likely higher.  There is no uniform reporting of crimes against trans and gender-diverse people ranging from those who have completed surgical reassignment, those who identify with a gender other than the one assigned at birth, those who embrace gender ambiguity, cross dressers, and drag performers who may be perceived as trans regardless of their orientation.  Many police reports identify victims only by their genitals and, especially in urban, crime plagued areas, most murders not involving children, multiple victims, white, or prominent victims are poorly covered by the press.

Levels of violence have risen in the United States but there is anecdotal evidence that the general rise of intolerance and hate crimes fostered by Donald Trump, his Republican Party, and semi-hysterical right wing Evangelicals has disproportionately affected those who are identified as Transgender, especially Blacks, Latinos, and other minorities due to the double-whammy of the rise of White Nationalism.

Haters respond to none-to-subtle cues from Republican state legislators and right wing media.  The last Trump Administration tried to define transgender identity “out of existence” and erase civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ people.

More state laws now narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth and more are coming  in the effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under Federal civil rights law. 

 

Street demonstrations demanding safety and justice respond to the right-wing backlash against Trans rights and escalating violence.

The Trumpist Justice Department rescinded Obama era protections for Transgender individuals in prison despite irrefutable evidence that placing prisoners in general populations based solely on birth genitalia is an open invitation to assault, rape, and even murder—precisely the outcome former Attorney General Jeff Sessions had in mind.

Meanwhile those red state legislatures worked over-time on their own attacks including ludicrous Bathroom Bills, removing protections of trans students in schools, and blocking or stripping out existing inclusion in hate crime laws.

Black Trans women are over-represented by percentage of the population among American crime victims.  Often tenuous and sometimes strained relations between activists in the Trans, Black, Gay, and feminist communities have sometimes stood in the way of common action and protest.

The International Transgender Day of Remembrance had its origin with the murder of Rita Hester, transgender African-American woman murdered in Allston, Massachusetts on November 28, 1998.

Like so many memorial days do, an outpouring of community grief and anger led to a candlelight vigil held the following Friday, December 4 with 250 people in attendance.

 

That vigil inspired the Remembering Our Dead web project and the International Transgender Day of Remembrance.  Gwendolyn Ann Smith, a transgender graphic designer, columnist, and activist helped organize the first public vigil in honor of all victims the next year in San Francisco in November of 1999.

Since then, the observation has spread across the world. 

The Unitarian Universalist Association, Tree of Life UU Congregation in McHenry, and Prairie Circle UU in Grayslake vigorously support Transgender rights.  Many congregations will participate in vigils, marches, and demonstrations today and/or have special worship services.

Many local, national, and international organizations now participate in and promote the Day of Remembrance.  I am proud to say that the Unitarian Universalist Association and the Side of Love Campaign have played a leading role.  Many UUA congregations dedicate some part of their services this time of the year to the memorial.