Reminder: Make Your 2012 TDOR Events Diverse Ones

We are now one month from the 2012 edition of the Transgender Day of Remembrance events that will be taking place all over the world to remember the people we lost due to anti-trans violence.

We have held these TDOR events since 1999 and have seen it grow to a worldwide event since that time.   The TDOR events are either in the final planning stages for some of you or others of you may just be getting started with that process.   Some have already settled on dates, times and locations for your TDOR commemorations.

If you have gotten to that point in your 2012 Transgender Day of Remembrance event planning, please send that info to Marti Abernathey or Ethan St Pierre at transgenderdor@gmail.com. 

You can also follow updates on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Transgenderdor

But I want to remind everyone of one salient point.   A disproportionate number of the people who lost their lives to anti-trans violence, like 70% of the overall list of people memorialized on the TDOR website were Black or Latina.   

Please do what you can to ensure that your TDOR events are as diverse as the people we memorialize.   I've said this for the last two years, but yet I continue to hear comments from POC trans people about TDOR events in various locales that aren't diverse and it's an irritant to us.

If we submit that this community is a diverse one and it tends to be one of the events in which we do get television and print media coverage, then we need to ensure that we show our diverse trans community to the world on that date.   

And yes, it's also just as important to demonstrate that our trans community allies are of diverse backgrounds as well.

So for those of you planning the 2012 TDOR's, please ensure the memorial service for our fallen sisters is as diverse as the people we lost due to anti-trans violence.