Today is what is called the Transgender Day of Remembrance, or TDOR for short. It's the day that transpeople and our allies remember the peeps worldwide who've lost their lives to anti-transgender violence. Events will take place all over the planet marking the occasion. In addition many GLBT websites (including my Transsistas-Transbrothas group) will symbolically black out their pages for the day.
The TDOR was started in honor of Rita Hester, an African-American transwoman who was brutally murdered in Boston back in November 1998. Rita had been living as a woman for over 20 years but after her death was disrespected by gay and straight media. That incensed the local Boston transgeder community who held a vigil for her.
That Boston vigil inspired San Francisco's Gwen Smith to not only plan one for the Bay Area the next year, but start the Remembering Our Dead web project that lists the people killed by anti transgender violence.
http://www.gender.org/remember/
Here in Louisville, the TDOR observance started in 2002 and has been capably hosted by the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. As I've mentioned in a previous post I was honored to be the featured speaker at the first two Louisville TDOR's in 2002 and 2003. Tonight there will be a memorial service for the 19 people we lost this year at the Caldwell Chapel on the LPTS campus. The featured speaker this year will be Brother Joshua Holiday. There will also be a Transgender 101 presentation at 12:30 PM conducted by Beth Harrison-Prado in the Winn Center.