Transgender Day of Remembrance, 2021

Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance.

This is not a day of high honor. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated on this day. This day is a message...and part of a system of messages...pay attention to it!  Sending this message is important to us. We consider ourselves to be a valuable culture.

This is the day on which we remember the lives of all our trans and non-binary siblings whose lives were ended this past year by the deliberate, hateful acts of others.  And the situation is grim; 2021 was the deadliest year for transgender people on record, with 375 lives lost due to violence around the world, 47 of those here in the United States.

This is not acceptable. Not to me.  And if, in the unlikely event it is acceptable to you, then get the f**k off my page and get the f**k off my planet. Haters, you are dead to me.

We all know that the forces of hate are gaining in power and influence around the world. These evil people are deliberately twisting the tenets of good, peaceful religions to "justify" their filth. Hatred is un-Christian, it is unbecoming, and it is unacceptable. And it is also so unnecessary; none of those trans people who were killed had any desire to "convert" their children, injure their souls, or do anything other than live their lives as the individuals they understand themselves to be.

Why do they harp on trans children so? Allowing children to be who they know themselves to be doesn't destroy lives; it saves lives.  Accepting and supporting them saves lives.

How much more death must there be? How much more suffering? Will we wind up herded into camps and shoved into gas chambers, as has happened once before in history?

This must be stopped. Not tomorrow. Not next year. NOW!

Let us mourn our dead...and then let us stand forth and fight the forces of hatred and bigotry.

We do this, not out of hatred ourselves, but out of self-preservation.  And so that, some day in the future, no one will have to mourn anymore.

Amy Gale Bowersox, November 20, 2021