About 30 people gathered at the front steps of the Batavia First Presbyterian Church at 300 East Main Street on Thursday evening, to mourn those who were lost to anti transgender violence in the United States over the last year.
“Well, in part, it’s a grief ritual, you know, it’s, every year we come together and remember and honor the people that were lost to anti trans violence, whether that’s because of homicide or because it was a suicide, like a death of despair. Loss of employment, loss of housing, can make, even though suicide, some might feel that that’s not necessarily similar. But when we think about communities that are marginalized and are often like in society, ostracized from things, often mental health issues, and suicide ideation comes with that kind of territory, and so every year, we kind of take a moment, you know, to, like, look out at this landscape and acknowledge its loss and be together at that loss, similar to like you would for a funeral for an individual, where there’s a catharsis emotionally and kind of coming together and validating one another’s pain. And then also to see the number of people for whom this is important enough to come out or to even interact with our post about it, or maybe they can’t make it tonight, all of these moments where people can kind of interact is a chance to have that connection and for that awareness that even if we can’t change what happened, we know that we’re not alone in mourning these people and feeling that it’s important to have this kind of awareness and try to reduce this kind of violence, so that maybe one day, you know, we won’t have a list of names,” says Lauren Berger, Interim Executive Director of GLOW OUT.
GLOW OUT partnered with SUNY Brockport’s Pride Association again this year for the event. This is the 26th year for the annual vigil, which was first observed in 1999, after Rita Hester, a black transgender woman, was killed in her Boston apartment. Locally, the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance has been held since 2019.
