The annual day of remembrance honors Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was killed in Massachusetts on Nov. 28, 1998. Her murder has yet to be solved. The annual day of remembrance continues to honor the lives of the countless transgender people who have been murdered across the world.
Terri Phoenix, director of the center, said the event in the Pit was held to raise awareness about gender identity- and gender expression-based violence.
“Based on information from the Transgender Day of Remembrance page, tdor.org, we made a placard for each of the names of the individuals who were murdered due to gender-identity or gender-expression, and we called their names and laid a rose on the placard,” Phoenix said.
These cards listed 81 transgender people who have been murdered since Nov. 21, 2013 — with names and photographs, if available, and the way they were murdered.
Phoenix hoped the event would raise awareness about the current gender binary system and the pain that it causes.
“In this case (the gender binary system) led to actual murder, very violent murders if you read some of the placards. But there is a level of violence that happens at a lesser degree every day as we try to make people conform to the norms of what is expected for males or for females.” Phoenix said.
Senior Christopher Gremillion said the most eye-opening part of the event was reading about the victims who could not be identified.
“At least with the people that you had their names, there was somebody that could name them, somebody who was family or something like that,” Gremillion said.
