Nov 20: Transgender Day of Remembrance

Of all the differences between SWOP chapters across the country, the one thing we all have in common is celebrating four important days each year. Today, November 20, SWOP-NYC will participate with other SWOP chapters in honoring and commemorating the thirteenth annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. This international event seeks to remember and memorialize the persons of trans experience who lost their lives due to transphobia.

This day is an important one for the sex worker community to take pause and remember. As a community and a movement, there is much we share with the trans community. Trans women are routinely profiled as sex workers, and face harassment on a regular basis from police and the community alike for simply being present. LGBTQ populations routinely face institutionalized marginalization and a lack of access to services which often can lead to participation in alternative and informal economies, including the sex trade. Both the sex worker and trans community are targets of violence, prejudice, and discrimination, and those lives tragically lost must be celebrated, and their memories kept. But both these movements share the same core principle: that every person is imbued with the right of bodily integrity, and that self-determination is central to our lives and identities. While on November 20 we remember those lost, we must also celebrate that central principle – that we alone own our bodies, our decisions, and our lives.

Lean more about TDOR
TDOR Events (International List)
Why We Remember by Jillian Page (Montreal Gazette)