Tonight I will be attending an annual event that touches my heart in a profound and emotional way, it is the Transgender Day of Remembrance being held at the Gay & Lesbian Center of Southern Nevada from 530 to 9 pm. For those who are not familiar with this event, members of our community and our allies gather in a safe space to pay tribute and read out loud the names of our transgender brothers and sisters who lost their lives in the past year. Tragically all of them have been murdered and what will break your heart, is the senseless violence that they endured. It is important and cathartic to say the names out loud of innocent lives that have been silenced forever. For me and for those that attend, it’s not easy to stand at the front of a room and announce these names and speak of the way they were taken away from the world. This year 311 transgender people were murdered and these are the cases that were reported.
As a gay man, I have no understanding or experience as to what it means to live as a transgender person, all I can offer is support, love and empathy. For every human being deserves to be loved, respected and included in this world. I truly believe that we as a community must do whatever we can to ensure that the T in LGBTQ no longer remains silent. The stories of our transgender brothers and sisters must be told, we must promote inclusion and empathy for all of them and we must stand beside them and embrace them. Together we can enact change to end the senseless loss of our transgender brothers and sisters through education, conversation and the enactment of basic laws and civil rights to protect them.
I look forward to the day when this event will no longer be needed and I’m optimistic that someday that will be a reality but until that day, we have work to do and a good place to begin would be to attend tonight’s event at the Center.
Please click on the link below for details:
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