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
Our colleagues at Disciples LGBTQ+ Alliance will be hosting Remembering Our Stories, a Transgender Day of Remembrance worship service on Saturday, November 20, at 7 p.m. This service will honor the memory of our transgender siblings whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence. 2021 is shaping up to be the deadliest year on record for transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming Americans. The Advocate has compiled a detailed list of these lives lost along with information about each person: https://www.advocate.com/transgender/2021/10/20/all-trans-people-killed-murdered-violence-2021-record-statistics#media-gallery-media-1
This service calls us to be agents of justice as part of God’s love story.
The worship service will stream live from the AllianceQ Facebook page.
Register at tinyurl.com/TDORworship for reminders and links to the livestream on November 20.
