On Trans Day of Remembrance We Look Back on the Worst Year Yet and Prepare for a Terrifying Future

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I’m writing this with tears streaming down my cheeks, a sick feeling in my stomach and a hole in my heart. I’m sorry I don’t have have something more hopeful to tell you today.

Every year Trans Day of Remembrance is a tough day. It’s hard to think about all the trans people we’ve lost. It’s hard to think about how we don’t even know the names of many, many more who were killed and misgendered or unreported. Every year, both in the United States and globally, most of the victims of anti-trans murders are Black and Brown trans women. Last year was exceptionally hard for a lot of us, because more trans women were murdered in the United States than any previous year on record. We were heartbroken and devastated. We felt hopeless. But we also were determined to be strong and to fight to make things better and to protect trans women, especially Black and Brown ones, and to make sure the United States was a safer place for trans women.

We were determined to keep in mind the intersectionality that puts trans women in danger. We wanted to focus on how racism and anti-Blackness contribute heavily to the murders of trans women, how most trans women who are killed are murdered by men they sleep with, how trans women who are poor or sex workers are more likely to be murdered. We talked about all of those things. We said something needed to be done to stop the most vulnerable from being killed at pandemic rates.

In 2016, the murders didn’t stop. The violence didn’t slow down. Instead here we are in November, and more trans people have been murdered in the US than were murdered last year. The numbers globally are even worse. Our goals were not met. Trans people are in the spotlight more than ever, with characters in movies, TV shows and books, but that’s only led to us being more at risk. Trans women, especially the ones who were already most at risk, are now hypervisible. Men who sleep with us are more afraid than ever that they’ll be found out. Politicians who hate us are targeting us in ways they never have before. People who want to commit violence against us are braver than ever before. Things aren’t getting better, they’re getting worse.

These are the names of the trans people we know of who were murdered this year, but only those we know of. We cannot forget them. We cannot ignore them. We cannot sweep them under the rug. If you have the strength, please fight for them and for the people who will be on this list next year, and the year after that. Contact your congresspeople, donate to trans organizations, call out transphobia and transmisogyny when you see it, volunteer your time. Don’t just talk about being an ally, actually do the work.

Monica Loera, 43

Jasmine Sierra, 52

Kayden Clarke, 24

Veronica Banks Cano, 40

Maya Young, 25

Demarkis Stansberry, 30

Kedarie/Kandicee Johnson, 16

Kourtney Yochum, 32

Shante Thompson, 34

Keyonna Blakeney, 22

Reecey Walker, 32

Mercedes Successful, 32

Amos Beede, 38

Goddess Diamond, 20

Dee Dee Dodds, 22

Dee Whigham, 25

Skye Mockabee, 26

Erykah Tijerina, 36

Rae’Lynn Thomas, 28

T.T., 27

Crystal Edmonds, 32

Jazz Alford, 30

Brandi Bledsoe, 32

Noony Norwood, 30

I’m not trying to make anyone feel guilty. I’m not saying that anyone should give up. I’m not saying to lose hope. There are plenty of people who have fought tooth and nail, and given up gallons of blood in this fight. If you’ve been fighting, if you’ve been working, thank you. But, also more of us need to work, and more of us need to fight. And we need to figure out new ways to do those things. We need to figure out how to make sure that white people and men and conservatives lose the power they abuse. We need to figure out how to make sure our hope turns into progress and protection.

I’m going to be honest. I think this is only the beginning. Our nation just elected a president and vice president who have already started the work to roll back protections for trans people. Not only that, but their public unrepentant homophobia, racism and violence against women is emboldening many across America to no longer hide those violent parts of themselves. I’m preparing for this year’s record to be shattered next year, and each year that Trump is in office. When people say we need to give him a chance, that if he’s really this terrible, we can vote him out after four years, or even impeach him after one, what I think of immediately is the thirty or forty or fifty or sixty trans people who are going to die each of those years because that will be the reality of Trump’s America.

Trans people, including trans kids have started killing themselves in order to make sure they don’t face a more violent fate at the hands of someone emboldened by our new administration. Trans children are so scared of the sixty million people who voted for Trump that they’ve decided that being dead is a better option. How did we get here? No, we’ve always been here. This is a nation of slavery, of genocide, of lynchings, of legal rape, of internment camps, of hate crimes and conversion therapy. This is a nation where a rapist is elected president. This is a nation where someone who wants to torture children until they hate themselves is elected vice president. This is nothing new for us, no matter how much we’d like to say it is. This is the direction we’ve been heading in since white people came to this country.

I’m not going to call these dark times. These are the palest of times. America is a pile of pale, broken bones, the bones of Black people murdered by police, the bones of immigrants murdered for coming to this country, the bones of children and church-goers and people out trying to have a good time who were brought down by mass shootings, the bones of Muslims murdered for not being Christian, and the bones of trans women murdered for existing in public. There is a cloud of smoke rising up from the fires of hatred lit by those who hate marginalized people. White Supremacy and White Christianity and White Conservatism teach Americans that it’s not only acceptable to hate all of these groups, but that it makes you more of a man, it makes you more of an American, it makes you more of a Good Person.

I don’t know how to be hopeful right now, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop writing or working or fighting, and I know everyone at Autostraddle stands firmly with me. I’m not asking other trans people to stay fighting with me, take care of yourself first. But I do ask that you at the very least stay alive. We need you. If you are feeling hopeless or need help, please reach out to someone or call the Trans Lifeline at (877) 565-8860 in the US or (877) 330-6366 in Canada. The Trevor Project can be reached at 1-866-488-7386, and they also have text and chat lines. The general National Suicide Prevention Hotline for the US can be reached at 1-800-273-8255.

You are beautiful and wonderful and deserve happiness and life and love. We love you and we’re going to keep on working and we’re going to figure out how we can do things that will make real change.