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<% IssueDate = "10/28/02" IssueCategory = "Events" %> GayToday.com - Top Story

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Transgender Day of Remembrance
to Honor 24 Murder Victims

Planned Wednesday, November 20 in 35 Locales Across the Globe

Gwen Araujo Memorial Attracts San Francisco Weekend Crowds

Compiled By GayToday

Citizens remember Gwen Araujo at a San Francisco memorial service
Photo By: Paul Barwick

In a year marked with two dozen reported anti-transgender murders, members of the transgendered community will gather to honor these victims in at least 35 locations nationally and internationally. The third edition of Day of Remembrance, a day to memorialize the transgender community's victims of murder and bias, will be observed on Wednesday, November 20.

From quiet events with a handful of people to candlelight vigils to performance events to art installations, each city finds a unique way to make the lives of those murdered visible. The Day of Remembrance, offshoot of the Remembering Our Dead website www.gender.org/remember/, annually draws hundreds of transgenders and their supporters from across the country to come out and say that each and every human is valuable and honored, and that no one should be so marginalized that their death doesn't matter.

"Too often people want to make our dead into forgotten people," said event founder Gwendolyn Ann Smith, "Now, more than ever, we need to stand together and say that taking life from anyone is not acceptable."

In a pre-November 20 show of community solidarity, large crowds gathered over the weekend in San Francisco to honor the memory of 17 year-old Gwen Araujo, mercilessly beaten and strangled.

A total of 19 states and the District of Columbia are now planning events within their borders, and four countries -- the United States, Canada, Chile and Spain -- will have Day of Remembrance events within their country. In addition, several prominent transgender websites will also be blacking out their main pages on November 20th, as a show of solidarity with the cause.

Events include a candlelight march down Market Street in San Francisco, California, A rally in Washington D.C., the dedication of a permanent memorial space in West Hollywood, California, an on-campus event at Ohio State University, and a memorial service in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota.

In Houston, organizers plan a somber vigil on the steps of City Hall.

"The impact of what's happened this year has been devastating," said Vanessa Edwards Foster, organizer of the Day of Remembrance in Houston. "I've lost a personal friend and protégé to this violence, for the fourth year in a row we've seen yet another murder here in Houston, Bibi Barajas, and we've lost three transgendered teenagers in high-profile, extremely violent incidents."

Foster, chair of the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC) stated, that Texas has seen 10 such murders over the past four years - six of them in Houston - and has no Hate Crimes language covering gender non-conformity, yet there's "little interest" in addressing the issue, even from Sen. Rodney Ellis, author of the James Byrd Hate Crimes Bill.

"From the nation's capital to the San Francisco Bay, violence against transgenders continues unabated," Foster commented. "But finding someone to care enough to address the issue is nearly impossible. How sad that we mean so little…."

Indeed, the recent brutal death of Gwen Araujo makes this year's observance all the more poignant. The National Transgender Day Of Remembrance was begun in San Francisco in 1999 as a response to the murder of Rita Hester, a transgendered woman who was stabbed to death in her apartment. Like most transgender killings, her murder remains unsolved.

The media interviews transgender activists at the Gwen Araujo memorial
Photo By: Paul Barwick

Through the work of the Remembering Our Dead project which spawned the Day of Remembrance, it was discovered that an average of one person is reported dead due to anti-transgender violence every month. In 2002 this figure has doubled, with 25 cases to date since the last Day of Remembrance.

"Some might think that the rise in numbers points to an increase in deaths this year," Smith, creator of the Remembering Our Dead website, noted. "While I think there may be some weight in that, I personally feel this points more to an increase in our own ability to find these cases, as well as an increased sensitivity to these cases in the media and amongst our community.

"The sad thing," Smith finished, "is that it could well mean that these cases have always happened in numbers like what we are finding now."

Although not every person represented during the Day of Remembrance self-identified as transgendered - that is, as a transsexual, crossdresser, or otherwise gender-variant - each was a victim of violence based on bias against transgendered people.

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