Bethlehem to mark Transgender Day of Remembrance
Over the past year, at least 56 transgender people have been murdered across the country, including five in Pennsylvania.
But it’s not uncommon for reporting on these killings to be inaccurate, said Corinne Goodwin, executive director of the Eastern PA Trans Equity Project. Most likely, there have been more.
“Whether it’s because of media bias or police bias or lack of ID or family members who don’t want to acknowledge their trans child or sibling, often trans people are misgendered in the media and misnamed in the media,” Goodwin said. “And so, there’s no doubt more than 56 people that have been murdered, but those are just the ones that we know about.”
Saturday is observed by many as the Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day set aside each year to honor the lives of transgender people victimized by transphobic violence, to spread awareness of that continued violence against trans people, and to foster inclusion and empathy in communities across the country.
The Eastern PA Trans Equity Project and Metropolitan Community Church of the Lehigh Valley are hosting an event in the Lehigh Valley to honor those who have died. It’s set to begin 4 p.m. Saturday at Payrow Plaza, 10 E. Church St. in Bethlehem.
“This past year, over 50 transgender people in the United States — primarily trans women of color — lost their lives at the hands of others,” said Rev. Elizabeth Goudy of MCCLV. “It is through efforts like this that we can educate the broader community about these issues and ultimately eliminate them.”
During the event, several local officials are slated to speak, as well as trans and non-binary folks who will talk about what the day means to them and share their personal experiences. Officials will also recite the names of every known transgender person who has been murdered in the past year, lighting a candle for each.
“It’s really important to remember that these people — they’re parents and they’re aunts and uncles, and they’re certainly somebody’s son or daughter, somebody’s child, and they have left people behind, and they left important lives behind, and we need to remember that,” Goodwin said.
Trans folks are over four times more likely than cisgender people — those who identify as the sex assigned when they were born — to be victims of violent crime, according to a March study from the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.
From 2017 to 2018, transgender people experienced 86.2 victimizations per 1,000 people compared to 21.7 victimizations per 1,000 for cisgender people, according to the study. One in four transgender women who were victimized thought the incident was a hate crime compared to less than one in 10 cisgender women.
“Transgender Day of Remembrance is a solemn reminder that every one of us must prioritize efforts to make our communities safe for transgender people to thrive,” said Adrian Shanker, executive director of the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown.
The center “stands in solidarity with trans-led organizations including Eastern PA Trans Equity Project, and we echo their demands for every Lehigh Valley community to be safe from anti-trans violence,” he said.
The Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy group in the country, said violence against transgender people has coincided with the worst year in recent history for anti-LGBTQ legislation.
The last year marked as the worst, 2015, saw 15 anti-LGBTQ bills enacted into law, according to the organization. In just the first five months of this year, 17 bills known for being anti-LGBTQ were passed, according to the organization.
According to Freedom for All Americans, a bipartisan campaign to win LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections nationwide, there are dozens of anti-trans bills working their way through state legislatures throughout the country, including 40 just in Texas.
In Pennsylvania, there is one bill marked by LGBT advocates as antitrans.
The bill, HB972, also known as the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, would mandate public schools and colleges to designate male, female or coed sports activities. It was introduced by Rep. Barbara Gleim of Cumberland County and is co-sponsored by 42 other Republicans.
“If my bill isn’t passed, the only winner is males,” Gleim said during testimony in August before the House Education Committee.
Goodwin said the bill only targets transgender girls, banning them from participating in school sports from the age of kindergarten all the way through college.
“They are not just bad for trans people,” Goodwin argues. “They’re bad for all women.”
The violence and efforts to quell trans rights only works to increase stigma against trans folk, and that makes a very difficult situation even more dire for youth, Goodwin said.
“Imagine what that’s like,” she said. “And it’s no wonder that trans kids go to college at a much lower rate, trans kids have lower GPAs.
“It all starts with this type of not just legislation, but this type of discrimination, that starts when you’re young and then follows you for your entire life.”