On the evening of Wednesday, November 20th, 2024, Transgender Day of Remembrance was observed by a gathering hosted by The Seed Theater. This year's event was held in a space at The Edney Building that is familiar to many in the local LGBTQ+ community. It has been the location for Pride Board Meetings, drag fundraisers, potlucks, game nights, and many other joyful gatherings. Wednesday's event was solemn, but just as important to this community as any other, if not moreso for some in attendance.
Transgender Day of Remembrance, often abbreviated as TDOR, is an international day of mourning that started in 1999 to honor the memory of Rita Hester who was a trans woman that was murdered in Massachusetts in 1998. Since then, thousands of trans people have been memorialized at TDOR events in cities and towns on every continent. In 2024, 113 trans people in the United States whose lives were lost to violence or self harm were officially recognized. Chattanooga has observed TDOR with at least one event for several years with various organizations, community leaders, and even churches hosting.
For this year’s TDOR, thin white candles were lit, one flame bringing life to the next wick until light was held in the hands of each attendee. Then the program began with a reading of Audre Lorde's poem Litany for Survival, a piece that speaks to the feeling of desperation many queer and other marginalized people experience simply trying to live in oppressive conditions. It is a cautiously hopeful prayer to not only survive, but to speak.
In that spirit, several members of the Seed's Transgender Support Group shared monologues about their personal stories of survival. A non-binary person's desire to be truly seen while facing a tug of war with gender dysphoria. Visions of gender affirmation found in pop culture icons who bent and broke rules of the binary. Journeys of self-discovery where exile, reconciliation, and found families paved the way. There were tears but there was also laughter, a welcome reminder that there is joy in every person's story. Closing out the readings was Let Fall to the Ground, a poem by trans poet Keath Silva that weaves metaphors of trampled gardens springing back to life and wounds healing into a message of meditative resilience.
The names of those from the official TDOR list were then read with patient reverence. Several people openly wept as tissues were passed between plastic chairs that creaked under bodies shaken by stifled sobs. Once the list was read, a request that is made every year at every TDOR gathering was offered. This was the chance for anyone present to speak the name of someone who was not recorded officially but who had been lost to this community in the past year. No additional names were spoken, but truthfully there may be those who were simply not known to the people in that room. The hope is that in this instance the silence holds the truth of survival. This is part of the lineage of experiences that connects the LGBTQ+ community as a family bound by neither blood nor vow but by sorrows and survival shared.
The presenters closed by offering some self care exercises and opening the space for people to socialize and care for each other in the moment. Some happily greeted friends they had not seen in some time. Others held each other while they wept and confessed their own fears for the safety of themselves and loved ones. The atmosphere was bittersweet. It was palpable that everyone there was grateful to have a space to gather with their community and give voice to this feeling of mourning and concerns over what the coming months and years will mean for trans people.
The heart of TDOR is not only a day to mourn people taken by cruelty, it is also a call to action. In the reading of names, in selections of poetry and scripture, in the litanies, in the tears, in the flickering flames held in trembling hands; there is the demand that each and every one of us do everything we can to make a world where such vigils are no longer needed. Until then, keep your candles lit and bring what light you can.
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