From Eòghann Renfroe at the Huffington Post:
“Every year on Transgender Day of Remembrance, communities across the country and throughout the world come together to read the names of the people taken from us by violence, light a candle in their memory, and pledge that their lives will not be forgotten. In the face of pervasive discrimination, harassment, and violence, it is a way for us to show that trans lives are valuable.
It is this perceived lack of value that underpins so many of the challenges that those of us in the transgender community face. Harassment in school often leads to a lack of educational opportunity. Discrimination in the workplace leaves many trans people chronically under- and unemployed. Access to health care is obstructed by lack of resources, outdated policies, and health care providers who have never been trained in the basics of transgender experience. For most trans people, these difficulties aren’t experienced one at a time; they overlap and intersect. When combined with other pervasive forms of discrimination — racism, classism, ageism, ableism, and more — many trans people are left without recourse. Homelessness is a persistent problem. The trans population, already especially vulnerable because of these intersecting forms of discrimination, is made even more vulnerable to criminalization, victimization, and, ultimately, violence.”
Read Renfroe’s full article at the Huffington Post, see a slideshow of a few of those lost in 2013 at the Advocate, and find details about Chicago’s candlelight vigil at GoPride.
