NOW Commemorates Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20

by Kourtney Stamps, Communications Intern, with contributions from Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz, Senior Field Organizer

On Saturday, Nov. 20, NOW will join groups around the world in commemorating the Sixth Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day set aside to memorialize our friends and allies in the transgender community who have been killed because of hatred or prejudice.

Special events, including marches, speaking engagements and candlelight vigils will be held around the world to honor the memories of these brave individuals whose lives were cut short by heinous acts of violence. These events are also organized to raise awareness and inspire discourse about a topic that often goes unnoticed by civil rights groups- the unique plight of transgender individuals.

Defining "Transgender"

Many people, feminists included, do not fully understand what it means to be transgender. "Transgender" is an umbrella term for people who feel the gender they were assigned at birth does not correspond with their gender identity.

Within the transgender category, there are several subcategories. Transsexuals are people who change their gender roles and sometimes their bodies in order to live as members of another sex. This process may include surgery, electrolysis or synthesized sex hormones. Crossdressers wear the clothing of another sex on occasion, but do not desire to change their bodies. Other groups of people who feel that they do not fit into a rigid gender system may identify as Genderqueers, Androgynes, Gender Blenders or Gender Benders. These people may feel that they are both male and female or that their gender identity falls outside the system all together.

Bring transgender is not directly correlated with a person's sexual orientation. Transgender individuals may identify as straight, gay, asexual or bisexual. Some transgender people strongly identify with the lesbian, gay or bisexual community, while others identify more with the straight community. Each transgender person makes that decision for him or herself.

The History Behind the Day

Transgender Day of Remembrance is held in November in honor of Rita Hester, a trans-woman who was murdered in her apartment just outside Boston, Mass., on the night of Nov. 28, 1998. Hester died of multiple stab wounds, and her murder--like most anti-transgender murder cases--remains unsolved. Her murder spawned "Remembering Our Dead," a web project dedicated to immortalizing the names of those persons killed because of anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. A candlelight vigil held in San Francisco in 1999 is recognized as the first Day of Remembrance event. Since then, events have been organized in numerous cities in the U.S. as well as in various countries around the world.

The Transgender Day of Remembrance serves several purposes. It is meant to raise public awareness of hate crimes against transgender people, an action that the mainstream media rarely performs. It also gives non-transgender people a chance to step forward and show their alliance with the transgender community. Most importantly, it serves as a memorial service for individuals whose lives might otherwise be forgotten.

Statistics regarding the number of transgender individuals killed every year are nearly impossible to compile because they are based only on what has been reported. It is impossible to know how many more murders go unreported. These cases rarely receive attention from the mainstream media. When they do, reporters almost never acknowledge that the victim was living as a member of another gender, instead using the pronouns compatible with the person's sex assignment at birth. Despite these problems, the "Remembering Our Dead" web project has been able to compile rough statistics. The site reports that between 1970 and October 2004, 234 transgender people were killed in the U.S. In 2003 alone, 32 transgender murders were reported worldwide.

Inclusive Language Needed

People who do not identify as the gender they have been assigned at birth face the threat of violence, actual physical attacks, verbal assaults and, in the worst cases, murder. Unfortunately, the law does not adequately protect transgender people against discrimination because legislative language is not specific enough to address their unique identity. It is this language that must change in order to provide transgender individuals and their families with legal recourse if they are targeted by perpetrators of hate crimes and other acts of anti-transgender prejudice.

Most anti-discrimination laws are written to prohibit discrimination based on a person's sex or sexual orientation. Since transgender persons are not targeted for either their sex or their sexual orientation, they are not protected under such legislation. The language needs to be rewritten to prohibit similar discrimination based on a person's gender identity and expression.

For the past several years, NOW has worked with other activist groups to make "gender identity and expression" part of the legislative language. The Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act of 2003, also known as the Hate Crimes Bill, was one such focus for our efforts. NOW officers worked closely with Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, to encourage Congress to add the appropriate language to the Hate Crimes Bill. This legislation passed the Senate, but without the changes NOW and other groups wanted. Making anti-discrimination policies trans-inclusive was also one of the conference resolutions passed at the National NOW Conference in 2002 and has been an important aspect of NOW's guidelines ever since.

We Must Take Action

As NOW strengthens its alliance with the transgender community, we encourage all feminists and progressives to take a stand on this important issue. "We must do everything in our power to prevent the discrimination and violence transgender people experience," said NOW Action Vice President Olga Vives. "As we remember those who have died because of hate and prejudice, we will help bring attention to this grim injustice."

To learn more about the Transgender Day of Remembrance, visit the official web site. To find out if an event is planned in your area, click here.

For additional information about Transgender Issues, please refer to the following organizations' web sites:
The National Center for Transgender Equality
The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition
The Transgender Law and Policy Institute

Thanks to Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, for her guidance on this article.