The Transgender Day of Remembrance was set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. The event is held in November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 kicked off the “Remembering Our Dead” web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999. Rita Hester’s murder – like most anti-transgender murder cases – has yet to be solved.
–Gwendolyn Ann Smith, founder
Normally TDoR is observed on November 20, but I am a worker.
The list is lengthy, as it seems to be every year. And this list is incomplete. I’d estimate that it represents about a quarter of those gender-variant people who were killed for being differently gendered since last November. Transgender Europe will release a more complete number, for the calendar year of 2013, in the future.
We shall strive not to forget.
The people listed inside have three things in common…and maybe more. First of all, they are all dead and have died since last November 20. Secondly, they are all transwomen. Thirdly, they died as a result of nothing more than intense hatred. One only needs to survey the causes of death to verify that. In many cases, the rage that the murderer must have had is evident in the number of stab wounds, the dismemberment or other mutilation evident on the bodies, or the execution that clearly had taken place (please note how many had been shot in the head).