Transgender Remembrance

Transgender Remembrance

Events in Phoenix and Tucson will be part of a worldwide observance of the lives and deaths of transgender individuals.

By Laura Latzko

Day of Remembrance events commemorate lives and deaths of transgender individuals

Transgender Day of Remembrance events in Phoenix and Tucson will remember more than 100 transgender and transsexual individuals who have been murdered worldwide during 2011.

The Phoenix event will be Nov. 20 at Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza near the state Capitol.

Margaux Ayn Schaffer, the organizer of the event and founder of Azdor.org, said the purpose of the vigil is to stop hate and violence through education. Volunteers will read victims' stories during the event.

It's part of a worldwide observance to bring attention to the violence committed against transgender and transsexual people. The first vigil was held in November 1999 in San Francisco for Rita Hester, a transgender woman in Allston, Mass., who was murdered a year earlier.

Schaffer said the events honor the lives and create awareness about the murders of people who have been killed for expressing their gender in non-normative ways.

"This is someone's son or daughter. This is someone's parent, this is someone's coworker," Schaffer said. "This is a human being."

Schaffer said that some transgendered victims become John or Jane Does because their families don't identify their bodies.

"If you don't have someone claiming your body, you become a statistic," Schaffer said. "We try to give a face, we try to give a name, we try to give dignity to these people who've been victimized."

TC Tolbert, the creator of Made for Flight in Tucson, said that when people murder transgender individuals they often commit multiple violent acts against them, such as sexually assaulting, stoning, burning, beating, mutilating and/or strangling.

"The level of violence done to trans bodies seems to have no end," Tolbert said. "There's always an attempt to send a message."

Tolbert said that violence could be directed toward anyone who doesn't fit societal norms, including straight women and men who go against gender norms in their looks or behaviors.

"You don't have to be transgender to experience gender bias," Tolbert said.

Transgender Europe estimates that 681 transgender people were murdered worldwide between January 2008 and September 2011. A majority of these reported murders occurred in Central and South American countries. Transgender Europe's statistics show that transgender and transsexual females of color, especially those working as sex workers, are most often the targets of transgender violence.

Schaffer said that hate crimes against transsexual and transgender people are much higher because the cases are underreported. -E

VITAL STATISTICS

Arizona Day of Remembrance
5 p.m. Nov. 20
Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza
1700 W. Washington St., Phoenix
www.azdor.org Day of remembrance Kites

Kites will be part of Tucson observance

Kites representing transgender people who were murdered in 2011 will be part of a vigil on Nov. 19 at the University of Arizona campus Tucson.

Made for Flight, a Tucson program that organizes workshops to educate people on transgender history and issues, will display the kites made by its members and students from local high schools.

"They had beautiful lives and were people," TC Tolbert said. "We should build kites so we can look up. There's a resiliency and beauty to that motion."

Tucson's sixth annual Day of Remembrance will also include poetry readings.

The event is also sponsored by the University of Arizona's Pride Alliance and Wingspan, Tucson's LGBT community center.

The organizations are also offering events during Transgender Awareness Week Nov. 14-19, including workshops, a resource fair, panel discussions and film screenings.

VITAL STATISTICS

Tucson Transgender Day of Remembrance
5:30 p.m. Nov. 19
Outdoor vigil at Old Main on University of Arizona in Tucson, followed by a procession from University Boulevard to Fourth Avenue and a reception at
Wingspan, 430 E. Seventh St., Tucson
www.sagatucson.org