Today, the Health Centre remembers the 327 publicly reported trans people lost to violence around the world in 2022. On a day when we also mourn five hate related deaths at an 2LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado, we recognize that more needs to be done to curb the violence and bigotry that face the 2LGBTQ+ community and end what the Human Rights Commission calls an epidemic of violence.
We stand with the 2LGBTQ+ community this day – and every day – where one death by violence is too many. The dead have names. They loved and were loved. They sought to live authentic lives in a complicated world. They were brave. For someone, they were a role model. They are remembered.
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.
“Transgender Day of Remembrance seeks to highlight the losses we face due to anti-transgender bigotry and violence. I am no stranger to the need to fight for our rights, and the right to simply exist is first and foremost. With so many seeking to erase transgender people — sometimes in the most brutal ways possible — it is vitally important that those we lose are remembered, and that we continue to fight for justice.”
Transgender Day of Remembrance founder Gwendolyn Ann Smith