This post is in honor of Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDR) which is a day for all of us to remember all the transgendered individuals who killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. Today marks the 10th annual TDR. This isn’t about if you “believe in” gender identity. It’s not about your religious, political beliefs, your morals or ethics this is about fact that every year people die because of who they are. I recently read an article called “50 under 30″ the article list 50 individuals who were under 30 years of age that were killed because of these prejudice. The full article can be found here http://www.gpac.org/50under30. I encourage all of you to browse the site and just think about those who are no longer with us.
For those of you wondering, “What the heck does transgendered mean?” Wikipedia defines the term as “Transgender is the state of one’s ‘gender identity’ (self-identification as woman, man, or neither) not matching one’s ‘assigned sex’ (identification by others as male or female based on physical/genetic sex). ‘Transgender’ does not imply any specific form of sexual orientation”
If you can I would encourage you to join an event in your area. First, look for an event here http://www.transgenderdor.org/ if that fails then try Google just type in” Transgender Day of Remembrance [your city].” Good luck and happy TDR!
EDIT 11/28/2008
Washington State Reconizes TDR:http://www.hum.wa.gov/documents/Gov%20Proclamations/TDR.PDF and http://blogout.justout.com/?p=4251
Google Recognizes TDR:http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/transgender-remembrance-day.html