Transgender Day of Remembrance
Transgender
Day of
Remembrance
Celebration and Recognition
Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is an annual observance on November 20 that honors the memory of the transgender people whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence.
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
Rita Hester (November 30, 1963 – November 28, 1998) was a transgender African-American woman who was murdered in Allston, Massachusetts, on November 28, 1998. In response to her murder, an outpouring of grief and anger led to a candlelight vigil held the following Friday (December 4) in which about 250 people participated. The community struggle to see Rita’s life and identity covered respectfully by local papers, including the Boston Herald and Bay Windows. Her death inspired the “Remembering Our Dead” web project and the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR).
The week before TDOR, people and organizations around the country participate in Transgender Awareness Week to help raise visibility for transgender people and address issues the community faces.
Each year, ANCGA holds our Transgender Day of Remembrance observance with both virtual online and in-person events to commemorate and honor those people who were viciously and brutally murdered between November 21st of the previous year to November 20th of the current year.
For more information about this annual event please contact us for details.
Articles of Interest
Human Rights Campaign
Remembering Our Dead – 2023 – 2024
Remembering Our Dead – 2022 – 2023
