Nov. 20 is Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day recognized annually for over 20 years.
“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,” read a statement from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) website.
This is a day to remember and light a candle for all the trans lives lost to violence this year, which was which was at least 32, according to a report Human Rights Campaign.
It doesn’t seem like that many, but to those in the community, we feel it deeply.
The Pride Center, the Women and Gender Resource Center and the Counseling Center held a memorial on Friday, Nov. 18 and as I sat there, it was hard to sort out my emotions.
Like many, this day serves as many things. It can serve as a reminder of what we fight for or make the fight that much harder.
For people new to the day, it can also be a realization of precisely what the trans community goes through. For me, it’s so complex that I freeze. I’m sad for those we lost and I know it’s more than 32. All of us know that.
There are those who came out the day they died, those who never got to come out, and so many more situations that no one knows about. People reported missing but never found. That little list of names, those pictures sitting on the tables, they are only the ones we know. So many names are forever obscured, miswritten and forgotten.
Mostly, I’m angry. Angry at the world that doesn’t seem to care. I sit in a room, mourning those killed, while someone outside is shouting and laughing. We who ask for so little get less. So many lives are cut short or lived in fear. I’m grateful to be as old as I am, grateful for the people in my life, and grateful for my ability to speak up.
I regret not doing more. But when I say I am grateful to be as old as I am, that is something someone my age should never say.
I’m nineteen.
So with the time I have, I will find joy in my life and mourn those we have lost.
Today we mourn, tomorrow we fight.
