Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance memorializes those lost to violence, bias

[The Philosopher]

from the Georgia Voice

As dozens gather on the steps of Georgia Capitol each Nov. 20, names are read aloud, each followed by a single chime of a bell ringing out into the cold night.

The gathering is the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance vigil, and the names are of transgender people who have died due to violence or discrimination. The bell is a stark reminder that some people want others who are “different” to be forgotten. Forever.

“This is the most emotional part of the vigil to me,” says Tracee McDaniel, founder and executive director of the Juxtaposed Center for Transformation, Inc., and organizer of Atlanta’s Transgender Day of Remembrance.

“These people are deceased. We memorialize those individuals by reciting their names — their families don’t want to remember them, others don’t want to remember them. We are making sure their names and their memories are remembered,” McDaniel says.

...

The Transgender Day of Remembrance, an international event, is held every November and was created following the Nov. 28, 1998, murder of Rita Hester, a 34-year-old African-American trans woman. She was brutally stabbed more than 20 times in her home near Boston and a candlelight vigil was held to remember her in the days following her murder. Hester’s death led to the “Remembering Our Dead” web project and also TDOR.

In 2011, seven transgender people have been reported killed in the U.S. and 11 others killed in other countries, according to international TDOR organizers. These people were strangled, shot, stabbed and beaten to death because of who they were.

http://www.thegavoice.com/index.php/community/features/3736-annual-transgender-day-of-remembrance-memorializes-those-lost-to-violence-bias">Click Here To Read More

http://www.transgenderdor.org/">Transgender Day of Remembrance

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[LenaGayle]

2. I will be

Attending the TDOR in Louisville KY.