About

We organize on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, specifically the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and Səl̓ílwətaɁɬ nations in so-called Vancouver, Canada. The Organizing Committee stands in solidarity with Indigenous peoples in their struggle for autonomy and self-determination. We understand that the gender binary is a colonial construct, and affirm the diversity of gender identity and gender expression of people around the world, especially those who are reclaiming identities and roles lost, erased, and vilified due to colonization.

Trans Day of Remembrance was set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-trans hatred and violence. The event is observed internationally, and held every year on November 20th, to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 kicked off the “Remembering Our Dead” web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999. Rita Hester’s murder — like most anti-trans murder cases — has yet to be solved.

Although not every person represented during the Day of Remembrance self-identified as transgender, each was a victim of violence based on bias against trans people, especially trans women and sex workers in particular.

Trans Week of Resilience was created by trans people in the United States to widen the focus of Trans Day of Remembrance and honour and celebrate the living trans community, especially trans people of colour, alongside memorializing those murdered and killed by anti-trans violence.

“For trans people of color to not only survive, but thrive, we need to reimagine our world.” (https://www.tdor.co/about)

Trans Day of Remembrance

Our mission is to memorialize the hundreds of trans people who are murdered each year, the majority of whom are trans women of colour and sex workers, and bring attention to the violence and oppression they experience.

We envision a world where trans women, sex workers, and trans people as a whole have the support and resources to live out their full lives with dignity, respect, and safety.

Trans Week of Resilience

Our mission is to gather resources and support for Two Spirit, trans, and gender nonconforming communities to organize and participate in a variety of events and opportunities for ourselves and each other.

We envision the creation of safer spaces to learn, grow, heal, and build individual and community capacity to navigate day-to-day struggles and to resist hatred and violence.

Basis of Unity

• We assert that transmisogyny and sex worker antagonism are the direct causes of violence faced by trans women and transfeminine people.
• We recognize that the majority of trans women murdered each year are Black women, Indigenous women, and women of colour from the Global South, many of whom are sex workers.
• We seek to leverage our privilege, power, and social agency as trans people presiding in Western, Global North countries like so-called Canada to organize internationally and work in solidarity across borders.
• We strive to highlight the many causes of death for trans people that are unaccounted for, including unreported / under-reported / misreported murders, suicides, and casualties of institutional violence.
• We understand that the gender binary is a colonial construct, and affirm the diversity of gender identity and gender expression of people around the world, especially those who are reclaiming identities and roles lost, erased, and vilified due to colonization.
• We work using anti-oppression, intersectionality, and decolonization as our framework to ground ourselves in the complex realities of oppression and violence, and seek to address issues that continue to affect trans communities local to our region, particularly those who are multiply-marginalized.
• We believe that the work is up to all of us to build community capacity and resilience to meaningfully challenge, resist, and fight the capitalist, imperialist, white supremacist cisheteropatriarchy, and push for stronger, more meaningful alliances among all marginalized communities.

For more information:

• http://www.transgenderdor.org/
• https://tgeu.org/tdor
• https://transrespect.org/en/research/trans-murder-monitoring/
• https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/