Holding Grief, Walking Towards Joy on Trans Day of Remembrance

Today, November 20th, marks Trans Day of Remembrance—a somber day for the trans community and those who love us to reflect on the members of our community we have lost too soon to violence and suicide.

While we may never know every story that ended this year, A4TE has collected the stories of 58 people, 28 who were lost to violence, 21 to suicide, and 8 to natural causes. As has been the case since the day was first marked in 1999, a disproportionate and unacceptable majority of these deaths are of Black transgender women and transgender women of color.

This is a heavy day filled with grief, memory, and an urgent call to action to give us our roses while we’re still here, not only while we’re gone.

This seems like a good, gentle moment for me to remind us the difference between joy and happiness. Happiness is a transient feeling based on positive circumstances, like eating an ice cream cone or standing in the sun. Joy is an attitude that defies circumstances, that is generated more deeply from connection, empowerment, and love.

Today is not a happy day, but I believe it is a joyful one.

Grieving in community, telling the stories of the people we have lost and the beauty they added to the world around them, treating each other with extra tenderness today, asking what we can do to pour love back into our community and prevent these numbers for continuing to rise, all this and more is a profoundly rich joyful tapestry of the human experience.

Joy is not pretending there is no loss, no pain, no grief. It is staring it down, unafraid, welcoming it in like an old friend, and holding the loss, the pain, and the grief together.

Advocates for Trans Equality has put together an incredibly Remembrance Report with a digital memorial of all those we lost. I highly recommend making some time today to take time today to sit with these stories, read about their lives, and to refuse to allow them to only become defined by their deaths.

https://www.transremembrance.org/in-memoriam

I also highly recommend not trying to hold the heavy emotions of today in isolation. If you can, consider attending an in-person vigil or event to gather and hold each other together. If you can’t attend, or would prefer to join something online, a number of major LGBTQ+ organizations are hosting an online vigil at 6pm EST today.

https://action.transequality.org/a/tdor-gathering

A Glimpse of the Future

When I think about the future I’m dreaming of, it’s not one where we don’t have to host this day anymore. I hope to see this day evolve in ways that we’re starting to see glimmers of. This year, we highlighted not only trans people lost to violence and suicide but also those lost to natural causes and old age—trans elders who lived full, beautiful lives.

I would love to see a world where our community knows they can grow old, and knows that we will gather to tell their story and celebrate their contributions, their story, and the simple beautiful fact that they lived. This year in particular we mourned the death of long time community leader and activist Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a Black Transgender woman, at the age of 78.

Miss Major has been a defiant, hopeful voice on the front lines of change for decades from leading community care during the AIDS epidemic to creating the House of gg in Arkansas, which included an “oasis for the healing of Black trans people”. When she passed a few months ago, someone shared a quote from her that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.

When she was asked, in 2022, when trans people would be liberated, she responded:

“I’m free now. I don’t need no permission from outside my front door. Fuck that shit. I’m free now.”

Her legacy has inspired trans and queer folk across timelines and across the planet. Coming together to celebrate what she built while she lived, to grieve her passing, and to carry on the torch she has lit, are some of the most joyful things we can do.

If the name Miss Major is new to you, I encourage you to read this incredibly beautiful interview she did, and to look at the book (by the same author as the interview) of thousands of recorded hours of conversation distilled into wisdom for the next generation of advocates. It’s called Miss Major Speaks.

Closing Thoughts

Today, we hold each other. We offer tenderness and gentleness to our selves, to our loved ones. We tell the trans people in our lives I’m glad you’re here. We ask what we can do to keep them here.

We send donations to organizations of Black trans women working to protect the most vulnerable among us. The Okra Project is a great example, and I encourage readers to leave a comment if there is another Black trans organization you’d like to uplift.

As I’ve done in previous articles, if you make a donation of any size to an organization of your choosing and message me to tell me the amount and the org, (honor system is fine!) I will comp you a free 6 months of paid access to Good Queer News.

Tomorrow, we pick up our tools and we get back to work building something better. If you aren’t sure where to start, here are a few ideas.

For today, just know that I see you, and I love you, and we do not walk alone.

All my love,

Ben