Transgender Day of Remembrance has been observed on November 20th for the past 20 years. Today it is the biggest “multi venue transgender even in the world” (Lamble,2008).

It started as the “Remembering Our Dead” project, which was a website used to track violence against members of the transgender community.

 

It began in 1999 after the death of Rita Hester in Boston. The movement was founded by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, a trans writer and activist, who was compelled to act after Hester’s murder went unacknowledged by the media and even by other members of the trans community (Burns,2019).

The day brings recognition to victims of anti-transgender violence and members of the transgender community to highlight how their stories are often forgotten. It is observed annually across the world.

Different groups of people hold either an in person or virtual vigil where the names of all the victims of anti-transgender violence from the following year are read aloud which is then followed by a moment of silence. The calendar runs from September to October of the following year.

Today, the Remembering Our Dead project consists of volunteers who collect the names, date, location, and causes of death. The organization combines their data with the data collected from the Trans Murder Monitoring project. They collect data on the deaths of transgender individuals worldwide (Lamble,2008).

In order to obtain this data, the volunteers must conduct investigations into the deaths of transgender individuals because the details are often wrong or unclear. Media outlets, law enforcement, and families of the victims often misgender, and dead name the individuals in their death.

Another factor that impacts their investigation is their deaths are not always fully investigated. It is common for their deaths to be ruled suicidal or accidental without enough evidence. The investigations are reliant on mainstream media outlets, and whatever information can be found on social media.