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For the seventh year in a row, San Mateo County will host Transgender Day of Remembrance, a ceremony and virtual gathering bringing together residents, activists, poets, and members of the local LGBTQ community to honor the lives of transgender people who have been killed.
The transgender pride flag was raised at the County Center in Redwood City on Monday and will continue to fly tomorrow, which the Board of Supervisors declared the county’s Transgender Day of Remembrance.
“The purpose of this event is to memorialize transgender individuals murdered for being who they are,” said Tanya Beat, director of the county’s LGBTQ Commission and lead organizer for the event. “And to provide the community the opportunity to mourn and recognize the individuals, their lives and what they’ve lived for.”
For Frankie Sapp, event organizer and program director with the San Mateo County Pride Center, the Day of Remembrance is both a necessary and a painful reminder of the struggle transgender people continue to face.
“A big part of my identity is being trans,” said Sapp, who also identifies as Filipino and disabled. “What [the event] signifies to me is that there is still a part of the world that still doesn’t consider us human, simply because we reject their definition of what human means. And so what this day is, is acknowledging lives taken by people who decided that their definitions are right.”
The ceremony, which begins at 5 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 19 and is open to all, will include an introduction from Bishop Megan Rohrer, the first openly transgender Bishop in a major Christian denomination, and will be “half ceremony and half moderated panel,” according to Beat.
“The first half of the event is really honoring all the lives that have been lost. And we have two poets joining us to share their work,” said Beat.
This year, participants will honor the lives of 49 people killed throughout the country in 2021, including Natalia Smüt, a 24-year-old trans woman and drag performer who was active in the San Jose LGBTQ community before her death in April. According to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), 2021 surpassed 2020 as the most violent year since recording began in 2013. But organizers emphasize that even 49 is likely an underrepresentation of the actual number of victims, many of whom may be unreported or misreported.
In Solidarity
In the fall of 1999, Bay Area native Gwendolyn Ann Smith joined a group of other transgender people to discuss the growing epidemic of anti-trans violence. One year prior, a fellow trans woman, Rita Hester, was murdered in her own Boston apartment. To Smith, Hester’s death was a stark reminder of the violence that transgender people continued to face in their daily lives—and she wanted to do something about it.
That November, Smith and others held the first-ever Transgender Day of Remembrance, a candlelight vigil in San Francisco’s Castro District to mourn and honor those who’d been lost.
Twenty-two years later, communities worldwide continue to gather in solidarity for the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Beat, who became emotional talking about the victims of anti-trans violence, said that counselors will be available during the event for anyone who needs it. The organizers are also inviting community members to submit poetry or spoken word, to give them an outlet to express themselves.
“When we provide a space for grief, this is a really hard topic, because we're talking about people who have been killed,” she said.
“This year, there were two young people killed. A 16-year-old and a 22-year-old who were killed at home by their mother. Because she couldn't accept who they were,” Beat said with emotion. “And I pray for that. Because they probably thought they were safe.”
In the wake of a spate of anti-trans legislation around the country, organizers are calling for greater awareness of the continued violence against transgender people. In April, CNN reported that thirty-three states had introduced over 100 bills that limit the rights of transgender people nationwide. According to the HRC, 2021 was “the worst year for anti-LGBTQ legislation.”
A moderated panel of three Bay Area advocates will follow the memorial. Panelists include Anjali Rimi, founder of Parivar Bay Area, a community of Trans and Queer South Asian people; Sera Fernando, the chief diversity officer for Silicon Valley Pride; and Blossom Brown, an activist who recently participated in the Netflix walkout protesting Dave Chapelle’s recent comedy special.
In addition to sharing their own stories, Beat said, the panelists will discuss advocacy efforts and other ways for the community to get involved. She hopes the event—put on by the San Mateo County LGBTQ Commission in collaboration with the County Pride Initiative and Pride Center, and the Redwood City Public Library among other local organizations—could bring in 70 or 80 participants.
Though Beat believes San Mateo County is a progressive area, she says there is still a lot of work to be done to make it a safe place for members of the trans community.
“I can't speak on behalf of someone who is transgender, because I’m not transgender,” she said. “However, I have to listen to their lived experiences, when they say they're not being hired, that they're being discriminated against in their department or their workplace, that their supervisor is intentionally misgendering them even after they share constantly what their pronouns are. It is those kinds of microaggressions that really can impact someone from wanting to stay here in this county.”
Beat said that financial and employment instability contribute to a sense of alienation in a county already marked by wealth disparity, which the pandemic has only exacerbated. According to research published in March 2021 by the HRC and PSB Insights, 19% of transgender people and 26% of transgender people of color became unemployed during the pandemic. An estimated 40% of employed LGBTQ adults work in industries significantly impacted by the pandemic, including food service, education, healthcare, and retail.
In addition to creating a place for people to grieve, Beat says the Transgender Day of Remembrance is also a time to initiate change.
“Our audience tends to be a lot of allies who attend who want to be able to support the community,” she said. “What does that look like? You can honor something within an hour, and then what can you do after that—and the next day?”
For Sapp, being an ally means joining the community in whatever way possible, whether that means showing up at the event on Friday and bringing friends, attending trainings put on by the Pride Center, learning about how to use the right pronouns, or simply advocating for more gender neutral bathrooms.
And, Sapp added, activists like himself are always there for guidance. “If you want to help and just don’t know where to start, don't be afraid to ask.”
Expanding bathroom accessibility may seem like a small thing, but for many trans and gender non-conforming people, it is a matter of public safety. As Sapp told the Board of Supervisors during the meeting on Nov. 9, not having access to safe bathrooms was the reason he decided to take more steps to "pass" as a man.
"I don’t think many know that after my gender affirming surgeries, I had no intention of taking hormones as part of my transition," he told the Board. "I was completely content after I received top surgery. It was only after too many narrowed escapes from being jumped and violently beaten in gendered washrooms and change rooms that I decided life was too hard not to pass."
Beat echoed Sapp’s sentiment, saying that she wants everyone to consider what small actions they can take to make their community a safer, more welcoming place for all.
“Even just using pronouns. People are like, ‘Well, who cares about pronouns?’ And it does make a difference. It lets people know that it's on your mind. And when it's on your mind, it's part of your life. And when it's part of your life, it becomes just normal,” she said.
“When we are able to do that on a day to day basis, I think that makes a huge difference for everyone, not just to transgender individuals, but anyone who feels like they’re different. Or an outcast.”
Though there’s no official census of LGBTQ people in San Mateo County, the population is estimated to be around 4%, or 30,000 people, of the county's population, based on extrapolation from national data.
For Sapp, who joined the county Pride Center in 2020, this year’s event is part of a bigger effort underway to end violence against trans people.
“I think the movement that I'm seeing this year,” he said, “is that we are actively saying we've had enough. And we've always had enough. And now we're saying no, publicly … it's time.”
Beat agreed.
“It's more than just this day,” she said.
“We have to do some things to be able to make it okay to express yourself and your gender, to love who you want to love and to be safe in that. We incorporate this panel so that people feel like there is more resilience than just remembrance.”
Want to learn more? Check out the event info page, or register to attend here.
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Leah Worthington is the lead reporter at the Redwood City Pulse, a local news site dedicated to providing accurate and timely news to the Redwood City community. Leah can be reached at lworthington@rwcpulse.com, on Twitter, and by phone at 650-888-3794. To read more stories about Redwood City, subscribe to our daily Express newsletter on rwcpulse.com.
