Transgender remembrance, intersectionality, and celebrating trans* art
Hello everyone! I’m Toni, a developer on Datawrapper’s app team. Last Thursday was Transgender Day of Remembrance, so I'd like to take the opportunity to share what I’ve learned researching the topic.
November 20th is the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR), a day to remember all trans* people lost to violence in the past year. It comes a day after Transgender Awareness Week, which is celebrated globally from November 13th to 19th. TDoR first took place in 1999 when a small group, including transgender activist Gwendolyn Ann Smith, memorialized the murders of two Black transgender women, Rita Hester and Chanelle Picket. After Hester’s death in 1998, Smith was surprised that none of her friends remembered Pickett, who was actually murdered in the same place three years prior, so she, together with others, decided to set up a memorial in Boston and San Francisco, which marked the first TDoR and started a growing movement to raise awareness.
Intersectionality of violence
To keep track of global violence against trans people and the intersectionality of the issue, Transgender Europe releases a dataset of verified reports of murders of trans and gender diverse people globally. Tragically, many of these deaths remain underreported or victims misrepresented. While the data is not exhaustive, it gives us a good picture of the groups of trans people who are most at risk of violence, and what happens when different layers of discrimination add up:
Those who find themselves at the intersection of transphobia, sexism, racism, and discrimination against sex workers are most at risk of violence. It’s important to acknowledge that all these forms of institutional discrimination are interconnected and should not be seen as separate issues. The racial aspect, for example, is often left out of reporting, as well as memorial ceremonies and biographies, which oversimplifies how complex these hierarchical systems of oppression are and makes White witnesses seem innocent.
Our task, then, is to push these efforts further—not only with respect to TDoR but also in the many ways we recount and confront violence. None of us are innocent. We must envision practices of remembrance that situate our own positions within structures of power that authorize violence in the first place. Our task is to move from sympathy to responsibility, from complicity to reflexivity, from witnessing to action. It is not enough to simply honor the memory of the dead—we must transform the practices of the living. Lamble, 2008: "Retelling Racialized Violence, Remaking White Innocence: The Politics of Interlocking Oppressions in Transgender Day of Remembrance”
Celebrating trans art
To make sure that trans lives are not only remembered but also celebrated, I’d like to share some of my favorite art made by trans and non-binary authors*, that may bring you joy and a chance to explore your own identity and reality:
The Matrix was an instant classic when it was released in 1999. Written and directed by the then-closeted Wachowskis, waking up from the Matrix, a simulated virtual reality construct of the world created by artificial intelligence to keep human minds under control, can be read as an allegory of waking up to all sorts of forms of systemic oppression.
I Saw The TV Glow is a psychological horror film written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun. A teenager just trying to make it through life in the suburbs bonds with his classmate over a mysterious TV show, which drives them to question their reality and identities. It seems to be hit or miss for people, but I really appreciated the rawness of the dad character, whose only line in the entire movie is “Isn’t that a show for girls?”
Dead End: Paranormal Park is an animated horror comedy TV show based on the graphic novel DeadEndia by Hamish Steele. It features a gay transgender teen boy as a main character, and it recently found itself at the center of a manufactured outrage and Netflix boycott campaign on X. It was “thanks” to this outrage, and this video about it by Jessie Gender, that I learned about the show and got to enjoy it!
Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides Non-Stop Remix Album by the late and legendary electronic music artist Sophie is a deconstructed club album like no other. It’s based on her previous album, but reshaped to give the continuous, non-stop feel of her live shows, split into two halves. It’s mechanical, futuristic, hypnotic, and features heavily textured synthetic soundscapes, “from throbbing techno to glitter-dusted house renditions and glossy ambient drones” as Matt Moen puts it. It might not be for everyone, but for me, side one specifically is the perfect music to dance away existential dread.
Note: The term trans* includes trans men and women, as well as non-binary and other related identities and expressions.
Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you can find some joy in the works I shared. Stay safe and show solidarity. None of us is free until all of us are free. Tune in next week for a Weekly Chart by fellow app team developer Linus!
