Live your lives with euphoria - A Trans Day of Remembrance reflection
DURING our online vigil for Trans Day of Remembrance [TDoR] on 20th November, OTN Co-Chair Sarah Hobbs shared this reflection.
TDoR is an annual observance on 20th November in memory of the trans people who lost their lives because of transphobia in the past year.
At the time of writing, the number of reports from 1st October 2023 to 30th September 2024 was 427 from more than 40 countries. Source: tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports.
Every year, the Trans Day of Remembrance is a painful day. As I watch the names roll by, one by one, I mourn. Not just because of the loss of life - although that is both sad and outrageous. Sad because the people around them have been robbed of their life and their presence, but outrageous because the people who could do something about it, just don’t seem to care or worse, they encourage it.
Year on year, it feels like trans people’s lives matter less. For all of the countries where acceptance grows, there are sadly many more where acceptance narrows and shrivels. According to the Trans Lives Matter website, 427 lives this year around the world testify to that sad truth. Many of the people who ended those lives will never be found or prosecuted for their despicable crimes. But more than that, the saddest thing is the loss of potential. Each of those people were creative life forces, full of talent and hope. All of them imbued with possibility and all of them, given the chance to release that potential, would have had a knock-on effect that would have changed the world.
We may each stand in a different place, but this year we couldn’t bear to watch the names. The heartache is almost too much to bear. This doesn’t diminish them, we still stop, pause, reflect and take the time to hold them closely in our hearts. We relish all of their lives for the time they were with us and to remember everything they were.
Each year it feels more and more like the situation for trans people around the world gets worse. Even the posting of the announcement of this act of remembrance prompted some disgusting responses from people who won’t give us peace even to remember our dead. But at some point, we need to stop and instead of letting the hatred rule, we need to seek out hope. You might see this as naïve, but I still hope for change, we still hope that things can get better.
I imagine those 427 people cheering me on alongside those who were remembered last year and those the year before and so on. Are they looking down saying, ‘be afraid and lose heart’? Or are they cheering us on, urging us to make a difference? To live a life that counts, that honours their deaths.
Jesus talks of us being salt and light in the world. Our lives and our stories season like salt, our light shines, lighting the path for others to walk alongside us and to follow in our footsteps. Showing our light can be frightening - TDoR is a testament to that truth - but every trans person can also point to people that we have influenced for the good. People who have heard our stories and realised that we are not who they thought. They can see that God in their creativity has shaped and fashioned us into something beautiful. That we are just people too. People longing for peace and joy, just like everyone else. And they change around us.
