On Saturday (November 22) a group of transgender people and their allies met in Croydon Central Library to mark the deaths of each person who had been murdered in the previous year for being transgender.
THOSE PRESENT queued to light a candle for each of the 81 victims worldwide who had been murdered, as their names were read out by Rev. Art Lester, the minister of Croydon Unitarian Church and Fr Geoffrey Thompson from St Stephen’s Thornton Heath.
Accompanying leaflets listed the victims, some with photographs and the date and brief details of their murders, many of whom had met vicious deaths. After a minute’s silence those present went outside to lay flowers at a memorial placed by the Clocktower Centre steps for that purpose.
Earlier in the year spring bulbs had been planted at St Stephens’s Church, as a living memorial to the victims, and today, Sunday 23, some churches displayed white lilies to acknowledge the International Trans* Day of Remembrance 2014.
There were well over 250 Remembrance events worldwide. Some sources record well over 200 trans8 murders, though in some countries they go unmarked, and the true number is undoubtedly much higher.
Trans* Remembrance Day draws attention to the danger so many trans* people face every day, focusing on the worth of each individual, not the statistics.
The Croydon event was organised by TransPALS, the Croydon-based support group for trans people and Aurora, Croydon’s LGBT police consultation group .
For more information about TransPALS, click here:
For more information about Aurora, click here:
For more details of Trans Remembrance Day, click here:
Photo and story submitted by Roger Burg.
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