The Lives We Lost: A Digital Memorial Full of Life and Humanity
In the premature deaths of our trans comrades, Advocates for Trans Equality has extracted insights and understanding, both for our community and for the entire country.
by Valorie Van-Dieman
Today, on Transgender Day of Remembrance, we memorialize the members of our community we have lost over the past year, especially those whose lives were taken by violence and suicide. This has been an especially hard year for trans people as anti-trans policies, fueled by increasingly open hatred, have undone years of progress toward true equality in America and beyond.
For that reason, today calls especially for meaningful memorialization. Among the many people and organizations honoring this day, the nonprofit Advocates for Trans Equality has made a crucial contribution by building a digital memorial, the Trans Remembrance Project.
The project consists of several parts, notably a memorial that humanizes and gives life to the 58 trans Americans who died before their time over the past 12 months; a moving eulogy in honor of them; and a detailed report on the history and importance of Trans Day of Remembrance that is accompanied by an in-depth statistical analysis of those who have died.
“When we lose a trans person, everybody loses. We lose that authenticity. We lose that vision of what gender could be like. We lose an example of the fact that gender should be a canvas to express ourselves instead of a prison to hurt us,” Tekla Taylor, one of the primary authors of the project, said in a conversation with Assigned Media.
More than a way for trans people to honor and mourn those that we’ve lost, Trans Day of Remembrance serves as an opportunity to breathe life and humanity into our needless deaths for those outside of our community – a goal the project makes good on.
The memorials on the site each tell a brief yet moving story, focusing not on their deaths, but, rather, on their lives. “It's so important, I think, to be able to read through and see really who they were as people, like the things that they loved, their pets, their passions,” Tekla explained.
Another critical portion of the project is the report on the history of the day itself, especially the statistical section at the latter half of the report, wherein the project breaks down the leading causes of death for trans people. It takes special care to address the intersectionality of identity when it comes to violent death, noting the overwhelming likelihood for violent death by firearm for Black trans women.
The analysis offers a clear picture of the risks that still exist for trans people to be out in the world in spite of all the social progress we’ve made over the last decades.
The final piece of the project is the eulogy, a piece meant to inspire and uplift the reader in the midst of such an emotionally heavy day. The eulogy starts with the author, Bahari Thomas, speaking of hope and the future of trans acceptance; and ends with the kind words of the late Miss Major, a lifelong pillar of the trans community who we lost just last month.
The Trans Remembrance Project stands as a powerful memorial, for trans people who mourn and reflect on this day, and as a resource to share with cisgender allies to paint a picture of what every death in our community costs the world. Of the ultimate goal of the project, Tekla put it simply, “I hope people take away that we lose so much when we lose a trans person. Every trans person is changing the world around them. Just by existing, just by being yourself, you are making a change.”
Valorie Van-Dieman (they/she) is an Associate Editor at Assigned Media. @valorievandieman.bsky.social