Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is an annual observance on November 20 that honors the memory of the transgender people whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence. The San Diego LGBT Community Center is presenting a Transgender Day of Remembrance Ceremony on November 20 from 5-6:00 pm at Waterfront Park, 1600 Pacific Highway. You can also livestream the ceremony from Project TRANS at The Center’s Facebook page (San Diego LGBT Community Center). For more info, contact trans@thecentersd.org.

Additionally, the week before TDOR, people and organizations around the country participate in Transgender Awareness Week to help raise visibility for transgender people and address issues the community faces.

This is a time we memorialize, honor, and celebrate the lives tragically lost due to fatal anti-transgender violence and discrimination. These senseless murders are a global and national crisis that disproportionately affect Black, Indigenous, and migrant transgender womxn of color. TDOR is a day started in 1999 by Gwendolyn Ann Smith who began a vigil to honor the memory of Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was killed a year earlier. Since then, it has become an important day to honor all of those who have been murdered as a result of transphobia and hate.