Transgender Day of Remembrance
By AJ Birt, MA History
Content warning: This article discusses transphobia, violence, and suicide
November 20th marks Transgender Day of Remembrance. Every year, people of all identities gather in cities to hold vigils, remembering and commemorating deceased gender-non-conforming individuals. The event is a solemn but powerful moment of rebellion, reminding oppressive and transphobic cultures that trans people still exist.
Transgender Day of Remembrance first took place in 1999. Gwendolyn Ann Smith, a transgender activist, started the annual vigil in memory of Rita Hester, a fellow trans woman who was murdered in 1998. In the eight months following Hester’s death, at least eight more trans people were murdered.
The first vigil for Transgender Day of Remembrance was on November 28th, 1999 - the anniversary of Rita Hester’s death. Hester was not the only murdered transgender person to be remembered that day; any and all victims of anti-trans action were the focus of commemoration. Three events were held concurrently: two in Boston, the home state of Hester and Smith, and one in San Francisco. As well as this, Smith created the website ‘Remembering Our Dead’, charting the names of murdered trans people since 1970.
In defiiance of the erasure of trans lives, Transgender Day of Remembrance ensures that spirits live on. Smith began the movement to allow trans people a space to mourn for their fallen siblings. While the first vigils originated from America, organisations in countries all across Europe and Central Asia now hold similar vigils. In Bristol, Trans Pride Bristol and Trans Resistance Action Network are collaborating to organise the 2024 Transgender Day of Remembrance vigil.
Anti-trans violence is not a relic of the past. The endurance of Transgender Day of Remembrance is a painful reminder that anti-trans activity persists. In 2023, for example, anti-trans violence was launched into the public consciousness of the United Kingdom with the murder of Brianna Ghey. Ghey, a 16-year-old transgender girl, was lured to a park by two pupils from her school and was murdered.
In the same week, in Oklahoma, America, a non-binary teenager named Nex Benedict was killed following extensive bullying. Despite authorities ruling their death a suicide, as their school claimed that there was no bullying and Benedict passed away the day after being grievously beaten, the Human Rights Campaign has recently found the school accountable for the hostile climate that Benedict was exposed to. Anti-trans action in Oklahoma - such as banning students from using bathrooms that do not align with the sex they were assigned at birth - contributed to the death of another young trans person.
GLAAD, the leading American charity that works to enforce cultural change to better the lives of LGBTQ+ individuals, has an ongoing list that remembers murdered and deceased transgender people. The permanency of the website has a different effect to an in-person vigil for transgender remembrance, but the message remains the same. Their names will be known as they wanted them known, and they will be remembered for their lives, and their persistence, and for them. Such an approach is notable when many media outlets continue to deadname transgender individuals when reporting on them, or use incorrect pronouns. Transgender Day of Remembrance commemorates the individual as their true selves, offering continued respect in death.
With such violence and peril still horrifyingly apparent, Transgender Day of Remembrance is an important moment for a tense community to grieve. Yet while being a demonstration of grief, transgender remembrance vigils are simultaneously a call to arms. The vitality of the dead on this day is a stark reminder to the world that transgender people will not be erased. As Smith wrote,
Edited by William Budd