Carnegie Community Centre hosts Vancouver Trans Day of Remembrance memorial

by Charlie Smith on November 20th, 2016 at 9:56 AM

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From 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. today, Vancouverites will gather in the main-floor theatre room at the Carnegie Community Centre (401 Main Street) to pay homage to some of the most oppressed people in our society.

The Vancouver Trans Day of Remembrance event serves as a memorial to trans, gender-queer, and gender-diverse people who were murdered or, in some cases, committed suicide.

The Vancouver memorial coincides with the International Transgender Day of Remembrance, which is recognized at similar events in cities across North America, Europe, and Australia.

The International Transgender Day of Remembrance website highlights 86 trans and gender-diverse people who were murdered in 2016. Of those, 65 occurred in a single country: Brazil.

"Although not every person represented during the Day of Remembrance self-identified as transgender—that is, as a transsexual, crossdresser, or otherwise gender-variant—each was a victim of violence based on bias against transgender people," the website states. "We live in times more sensitive than ever to hatred based violence, especially since the events of September 11th. Yet even now, the deaths of those based on anti-transgender hatred or prejudice are largely ignored."

The day was founded by 1999 by American transgender woman Gwendolyn Ann Smith following the 1998 murder of another transgender woman, Rita Hester, in Massachusetts.

It also comes two days after U.S. president-elect announced that his attorney general would be Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, who's been condemned by the Human Rights Campaign as a "vehemently anti-LGBT politician".