First of all I want tell all of the transgender community how courageous you all are for being emotionally strong enough to simply exist ,
living your lives for who you truly are on the inside. You are beautiful individuals who do not deserve to live in fear because of who you are.
Honoring those that have died in 2014 from anti-transgender hate crimes.
The Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) was set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice.
The annual event is held on or around November 20th to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 kicked off the “Remembering Our Dead” web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999.
Rita Hester’s murder — like most anti-transgender murder cases — has yet to be solved.
Since 1998, every 20th of November, Transgender Day of Remembrance marks and memorialize those trans* people who have been killed as a result of hatred and transphobia.
The day also seeks to draw attention to the continued violence faced by trans people every day, all over the world.
TDoR continues to grow and spread and is now observed in more than 185 cities throughout the world.
This year, ZACHS & KRIEG, a musical duo made up of two transgender activists and artists Maxwell Zachs and Josephine Krieg, will release a single written and recorded specifically for TDoR. Their goal is simple: to shine a light on this special day and share the strength and resilience of trans* people with the world.
“Keeping you alive is a song that communicates trans experience. It is a song of pain and loneliness of longing and despair, yet it ends with with a message of hope and survival. “Keeping you alive ” is a call to solidarity as much as it is an expression of mourning. In addition to the single they are calling upon people to help raise awareness of TDoR by hosting their own events, they are offering to ‘perform live’ for free via a free web feed to anyone irrespective of their event’s location around the world. Music is such a powerful tool in peoples lives and thats also the case in mine , as its TDoR time I would like to share how music can help effect change, It connects the dots it brings people together and it gets people moving it CHANGES THE WORLD !!
It changed me. After years of therapy and living in denial of my own transgender status I heard a song from my beloved Elliott called “Happiness” and it became the impetus I needed to change my life. Hearing the he and she in the song and realising this, to me, is about the internal struggle most trans* people face when coming to terms with themselves, I became convinced that Elliott was in some way a victim of gender dysphoria as it would take someone who has been there to come up with a song like that . Of course many of Elliott’s fans feel this way over their own personal mountains their minds have had to climb and this goes to show just how powerful music is .
On this day of remembrance It is my hope that The violence would stop, that The hate would cease and that The fear would be faced, and dealt with. Fear not only on the part of the offenders, but on the part of the members of our community. I have learned That I have needed to learn to face my fear,and in so doing ,working through the issue, and making it possible to go on and to be successful on my journey and by living openly and proudly as my true self try impact and change the minds of others for good.
My sincere hope and desire is, That one day the world would be rid of the hatred that makes this day of remembrance necessary.
