Wednesday, November 20, is Transgender Day of Remembrance, which focuses on trans individuals who have misplaced their lives due to violence. Here’s what to know.
What’s Transgender Day of Remembrance?
Transgender Day of Remembrance is marked each Nov. 20 and started in 1999 to honor Rita Hester, a trans girl who was killed in Massachusetts.
The day marks the top of Transgender Consciousness Week, which is used to boost public information in regards to the transgender neighborhood and the problems they face.
The Williams Institute at UCLA Legislation estimates there are greater than 1,000,000 and a half transgender folks within the U.S. ages 13 and older. And it says transgender individuals are over 4 instances extra probably than others to be victims of violence.
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Candlelight vigils, memorials and different occasions are held to mark the day. The Human Rights Marketing campaign additionally launched its annual report on deaths of transgender folks together with the day.
Worldwide Transgender Day of Visibility, which is designed to deliver consideration to transgender folks, is commemorated in March.
What number of transgender folks have misplaced their lives to violence?
Not less than 36 transgender folks have died from violence up to now 12 months for the reason that final Day of Remembrance, the Human Rights Marketing campaign stated in its annual report. Since 2013, the group has recorded the deaths from violence of 372 victims who had been transgender and gender-expansive – which refers to somebody with a extra versatile vary of gender id or expression than usually related to the binary gender system.
The variety of victims is probably going increased as a result of many deaths typically aren’t reported or are misreported, or misgendering of the victims results in delays of their identification.
The Human Rights Marketing campaign stated there was a slight enhance from the earlier yr, when it recognized no less than 33 transgender victims of violence.
Numerous the victims tracked over the previous yr had been younger or folks of colour, with Black transgender ladies making up half of the 36 recognized. The youngest sufferer recognized was 14-year-old Pauly Likens of Pennsylvania.
Two-thirds of the fatalities concerned a firearm, the group stated. Almost a 3rd of the victims with a identified killer had been killed by an intimate companion, a pal or a member of the family.
What’s at stake politically?
This yr’s remembrance follows an election the place advocates say victories by President-elect Donald Trump and different Republican candidates who centered on points like transgender athletes dealt a setback to trans folks’s rights.
It additionally follows a wave of measures enacted in Republican states this yr proscribing the rights of transgender folks, particularly youth.
Half the states have banned gender-affirming medical take care of transgender youth. The U.S. Supreme Courtroom is about to listen to arguments subsequent month in a lawsuit difficult Tennessee’s ban.
Advocates say the laws and rhetoric is creating fewer protected areas for transgender folks, they usually fear it may spur extra violence in opposition to trans folks.
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