Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is an annual observance on November 20 that honors the memory of the transgender people whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence.
You can read more about the Transgender Day of Remembrance below, and find out how you can show support for the community on this day.
Additionally, the week before TDOR, people and organizations around the country participate in Transgender Awareness Week to help raise visibility for transgender people and address issues the community faces.
What is Transgender Day of Remembrance?
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
[More @ https://www.glaad.org/tdor]
2023 In Remembrance
These victims, like all of us, are loving partners, parents, family members, friends, and community members. They worked, went to school, and attended houses of worship. They were real people – people who did not deserve to have their lives taken from them.
As we continue to work toward justice and equality for transgender and gender non-conforming people, we mourn these precious lives that we have lost in 2023:
LaKendra Andrews
London Price
Lisa Love
Dominic Dupree, a.k.a. Dominic Palace
A’nee Johnson
Sherlyn Marjorie
Chyna Long
Luis Ángel Díaz Castro
YOKO
Thomas ‘Tom-Tom’ Robertson
DéVonnie J’Rae Johnson
Camdyn Rider
Jacob Williamson
Chanell Perez Ortiz
Ashia Davis
Banko Brown
Koko Da Doll
Ashley Burton
Ta’Siyah Woodland
Tortuguita
Chashay Ashanti Henderson
Maria Jose Rivera Rivera
Zachee Imanitwitaho
Unique Banks
KC Johnson
Jasmine “Star” Mack
For more information on these individuals, please CLICK HERE.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has been tracking reports of fatal anti-transgender violence for the past several years. Previous reports can be found: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015.
