November 20 is Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day to commemorate transgender people who have lost their lives to violence.
History of Transgender Day of Remembrance
According to this article from the Sage Encyclopedia of Trans Studies:
“The TDOR was an outgrowth of ‘Remembering Our Dead,’ a website with information about people who had been murdered because of their gender identity or expression, developed by Gwendolyn Ann Smith following the killing of Rita Hester, a 34-year-old Black trans woman. Hester was murdered in Allston, Massachusetts, on November 28, 1998, three years after another Black trans woman, 23-year-old Chanelle Pickett, was killed in nearby Watertown, Massachusetts. The trial of Pickett’s murderer had ended just 15 months before Hester’s murder, and although the two cases were not directly linked, the fact that both involved a brutal attack on a young Black trans woman, where the killer was never apprehended (in Hester’s case) or received a light sentence (in Pickett’s case), caught the attention of Smith. She created Remembering Our Dead to address the lack of trans community memory surrounding violence and murder. The website initially profiled 30 trans individuals, but this number immediately grew, as others began to share news about the deaths of additional trans people.
The TDOR also has its roots in a 1999 demonstration in San Francisco that called attention to the high rate of violence against trans people. Members and supporters of the now-defunct trans rights organization TG RAGE stood outside a theater that was showing The Brandon Teena Story, a documentary about Teena’s life and murder, with signs that had the names and dates of death of anti-trans murder victims. The success of this action led Smith and a Massachusetts trans woman, Penni Ashe Matz, to organize a protest to coincide with the first anniversary of Hester’s murder. This first Transgender Day of Remembrance was held in Boston and San Francisco. The following year, 16 cities across the United States held events, and the number of locations continued to grow in subsequent years. Today, it is commemorated worldwide in hundreds of communities.”
Addressing Violence Through Education
The more we can educate ourselves and our communities about what it means to be transgender, the greater the chance that we can contribute to helping stop the violence.
General Reference Articles
The library’s Credo Reference database is a good place to start learning, with topic pages on gender identity and transgender people.
Library Books
Transgender history: the roots of today’s revolution (print book, 2017) by Susan Stryker
“Covering American transgender history from the mid-twentieth century to today, Transgender History takes a chronological approach to the subject of transgender history, with each chapter covering major movements, writings, and events.”
Introduction to transgender studies (eBook, 2019) by Ardele Haefele-Thomas and Thatcher Combs
“This is the first introductory textbook intended for transgender/trans studies at the undergraduate level. The book can also be used for related courses in LGBTQ, queer, and gender/feminist studies. It encompasses and connects global contexts, intersecting identities, historic and contemporary issues, literature, history, politics, art, and culture.”