Awareness raised about transgender violence

11/19/2024

SUNY Cortland continued a more than decade-old tradition of marking Transgender Day of Remembrance with a solemn vigil on Nov. 13 on the Corey Union steps.

"On the Transgender Day of Remembrance, we honor and remember the lives lost in acts of anti-transgender violence," said Katarina Silvestri, a Transgender Day of Remembrance Subcommittee member of SUNY Cortland's Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression (SOGIE) Committee.

The vigil serves to honor and uplift people in the LGBTQ+ community who are made the most vulnerable due to how larger society treats transgender people, especially transgender people of color and even more specifically, transgender women of color.

"These victims, like all of us, were family members, friends and loving community members," said Sylvestri, an associate professor and Literacy Department chair.

The official Transgender Day of Remembrance is Nov. 20. It marks the end of Transgender Awareness Week, when people and organizations around the country worked to help raise visibility for transgender people and address issues the community faces.

At Cortland, SOGIE planned the vigil to foster a safe and positive environment for the LBGTQIAP communities at SUNY Cortland. Cortland campus community members, led by the SOGIE subcommittee, read the names of people killed by anti-transgender violence on Nov. 13, the first day of Transgender week.

"The Transgender Day of Remembrance is a time to create and hold space to pause and honor those who have lost their lives to anti-trans violence," Silvestri said.

On the day of the vigil, and again on Wednesday, Nov. 20, message screens around campus will share information about each of the 26 individuals killed so far in 2024. This year's grim toll is tracking with 2023, when acts of violence claimed the lives of 30 people around the U.S.

This year, the SOGIE subcommittee added to the slideshow statistical information about lives taken by anti-trans violence around the U.S. in 2024, as well as a message encouraging the campus community to donate to organizations that directly aid trans people. Statistics stated that:

• 74% of victims were people of color
• 63% of victims were killed with a gun
• 48% of victims were Black transgender women
• 37% of victims were misgendered or "deadnamed" - that is, disrespectfully identified by their former name - by authorities or the press

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBTQ advocacy group, has tracked the trend since 2013 and notes that those data are just the transgender homicides that they are aware of. Law enforcement agencies don't always report such deaths accurately or honor the deceased's gender identity, making it very difficult to learn about all the victims. SUNY Cortland held its first vigil that very same year.

Transgender Day of Remembrance was started nationally 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 transgender people lost to violence since Rita Hester's death in 1998. It has become an annual tradition.

"We do this alongside and in solidarity with our trans and gender expansive siblings, whether they be students, faculty, staff or any community members who want to join," Silverstri said. "The LGBTQ+ community and their allies can come together in this space that we make together for this purpose."

"Ultimately, we hope that someday we will not need a Trans Day of Remembrance, because trans people will live rich and full lives without anti-trans violence or being taken before their time."

SUNY Cortland added the ceremony to expand SOGIE's outreach to the transgender and nonconforming gender community, said SOGIE committee member Kate Coffey, associate professor of health, who helped launch the annual event.

"Generally as a group we were aware of all the public national days related to sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and so at the time, we were still looking at ways our committee could get involved to support students," Coffey said.

"There was a shift with our committee that we wanted to get more involved with transgender groups," she said.

The committee in 2019 added the annual TransAction Conference, which will be March 7 this year, Coffey said. As SOGIE's primary event focused on transgender issues, TransAction has grown in attendance and scope, having started with a student or alumni keynote speaker to becoming a full national conference with a national keynote speaker and a call for papers. The university's Louis Larson Lecture and Performance Series endowment supports the conference.

In addition to honoring the work of the Human Rights Campaign, SOGIE's Transgender Day of Remembrance Subcommittee also recognizes the activism and advocacy of a second national organization, the Anti-Violence Project, which works to end violence against LGBTQ and HIV-affected persons.

Read more about the history of the Transgender Day of Remembrance on the website of GLAAD, an advocacy organization working to accelerate the acceptance of transgender or gender non-conforming people.

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