November 28: Transgender Day of Remembrance

The unsolved murder of Rita Hester, an African-American transgender woman in Allston, Massachusetts on this date in 1998 resulted in the launching of the Transgender Day of Remembrance (November 20th). Keshet, an organization working for the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Jews in Jewish life, has a “Jewish Guide to the Marking of the Transgender Day of Remembrance” available at its website, New York’s Beit Shimchat Torah has a memorial prayer for the day posted at Ritualwell, and numerous synagogues in San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, and other communities around the country mark the day with special observances. At least 265 transgender people have been murdered around the world in 2012. To see Joy Ladin, a transgender professor at Yeshiva University (author of Through the Door of Life, a Jewish Journey Between Genders), speaking about Judaism from a transgender perspective, see below. “I stand proudly today – and every day – as an ally to the transgender community and to every person and family impacted by anti-transgender bullying and violence. Transgender people are part of the diversity that America celebrates today and they, like every American, deserve to live without fear of prejudice or violence.” —Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, in recognition of the Transgender Day of Remembrance