This is from the GLAAD.org webpage:
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
So, feel free to reply to this post, with a short remembrance for someone you may be aware of.
Sara Blackwood - Age 29 - 11 Oct 2020
Sara was shot while walking home from work at around 10pm on Sunday 11th October. Police said she was apparently walking home from work when she was shot, Indianapolis TV station WXIN reports. She had worked at a Kroger grocery store for several years, but she was on her way home from a different job, according to the station.
“She was very sweet and a very good person,” her friend Jimmy Johnson, a Kroger coworker, told the station. She provided excellent service to customers, he said. “She was very quick, so if they had a problem at the self-checkout, she would be right there,” he noted.
“The world at large is missing a very kind, responsible person,” Johnson added.
It is important to show respect for the unfortunate people persecuted and murdered for no crime, just for being different. For being what they should have been. I read a report from last year (Nov.2020) in Forbes where the statistics showed some 350 transgender people were: murdered, suffocated or burned alive in 2020.
This years figures will be available soon.
TDOR matters to us all.
Alex x
Over time I have read a number of accounts of the attacks and murders of trans people. One thing clearly stands out. In many cases, it is not just one bullet wound. It is multiple wounds. In many cases, it is not just one stab wound. It is multiple stab wounds. Further, sometimes it is accompanied by attempts to burn the body. Clearly there is something going on beyond the concept of "simple" murder.
When I moved here at the beginning of 2016, I learned of a trans woman who had been murdered here in 1999, I believe, but she wasn't identified until 2011. Her body had been dismembered and the pieces scattered. It wasn't until they found her head that an identification could be determined. To date, no one has ever been arrested...
I happened to find this link on Wikipedia. Worth looking at to remember those who have died because they were transgender. Very sad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_killed_for_being_transgender
Current list:
The trans group that I used to be part of has brought in speakers for the Vigil over the years, including Ian Harvie, Ryan Sallens, Laith Ashley and Gwendolyn Ann Smith. I was privileged to speak during the 2017 and 2018 Vigils.
When you prepare for an event like this, the gravity of the situation begins to sink in as you read the biographical information of the deceased. The more you read, it seems that the list is almost endless. The thing that is important is that behind each name was a fellow human and a fellow trans person. Each should be a reason that reinforces our continuing fight for justice, equality and acceptance...
