Today we remember the lives lost to transphobic violence.
But that feels weird to me because the reality is that the Queer Community and allies remember the lives lost to transphobic violence everyday. These lives lost impact all of our lives, the way that we live our lives, and in how we see ourselves.
Today the Queer Community and our allies ask the world to join us in remembering what we remember everyday. We ask that you take a moment today to pay tribute to the lives needlessly lost to transphobic violence. The lives of advocates, of mothers, and sisters, and brothers, of partners and lovers, the lives of children, often our most marginalized, and the lives of Black Trans Women.
We must make our services accessible to everyone. We must make our organizations accessible to everyone. Barriers to service are transphobic violence at the structural level. We need to be able to challenge our own values and beliefs and sit in our own discomfort. We need to take a moment and reflect on how we have adopted the beliefs and values of the dominant groups in society and recognize that some of these beliefs and values are not serving us. We need to have the strength to question these values and have hard conversations about them. We need to to challenge these faulty beliefs when we see them playing out in lives, our communities and our organizations. There are far too many people that are still not safe from transphobic violence.
-Ali
The memorial is part of TRANSformative Talks and aims to be an affirmative memorial space, we have started with the toronto region, and recognize that this is only a tiny representation of lives lost. We have researched and studied the media reporting of the events, but welcome additions and correction. This will be an ongoing project.