The Lavender (LGBTQIA+) Caucus is asking for your support by attending or participating in The Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), which is commerated yearly on November 20.
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.
TDOR vigils are often community based and organized by local organizations. By attending a vigil you can help:
- Raise awareness about discrimination, violence, and murder directed against transgender (living as or expressing a gender other than the one expected at birth), intersex (biologically in-between or outside male and female), and gender-nonconforming (acting in any way contrary to gender stereotypes) people.
- Commemorate the lives of transgender, intersex and gender-nonconforming people around the world who've been killed due to this kind of discrimination and violence within the past year.
- Show the solidarity of transgender, intersex and gender-nonconforming people as well as friends and supporters.
- Make a safer, more understanding and accepting world for people of all genders.
While anyone who does not fit rigid gender stereotypes may be targeted for this kind of violence, the trends in reported attacks and murders on transgender, intersex and gender-nonconforming people show the intersectionality of oppressions. Transgender Women Of Color, also known as TWOC, are disproportionately targeted and murdered, including TWOC who live in economically disadvantaged areas, showing the connections between transphobia (hate directed against transgender people), misogyny (hatred of women) and trans misogyny (hatred against transgender women), racism and economic discrimination/oppression.
The Green Party believes in the inherent basic right of all people to identify as being the gender they know themselves to be and the right to express themselves freely and with dignity and safety, without having to fear being discriminated against, attacked or murdered. We oppose violence of any form, and especially violence directed against people expressing their gender.
As TDOR fits with the Green Party pillars of Social Justice and Non-Violence and our work as a Caucus to advocate for the dignity, rights and safety of people of all genders, we of the Lavender LGBTIQA+ Caucus are asking the entire Green Party to support TDOR and events being held to commemorate TDOR.
For more information about TDOR here are some websites for further reading:
Transgender Day of Remembrance Memorial List:
https://tdor.info/
Transgender Law Center:
https://transgenderlawcenter.org/
GLADD Transgender Memoria:
https://www.glaad.org/blog/tdor-memoriam
National Transgender Equality Center:
https://transequality.org/issues/resources/national-transgender-discrimination-survey-full-report
TransJustice at the Audre Lorde Project:
https://alp.org/transjustice/
Lavender Green Caucus
November 20, 2019
