I 30 min, I will be driving downtown to our Capital Building for our TDOR event. This is the 9th year it will be held here. Only two cities participated the first year.

In Dacember 2001, Terrieann Summers was killed in her front yard. The killer was never found. I have a picture of myself standing next to her at the Win Dixie protest in Jan 2001, down in Jacksonville. It is on my bulletin board with a black ribbon next to her, to remind me. She was a friend. That TDOR in 2002 was the most horrific one for me, but . . . they never get easier. I hope none of you ever have a friend on that list. I hope the list will one day be zero.

a flame that refuses to be dimmed by those who seek to extinguish it through violence, hate, and ignorance.

Beautiful, moving post, Donna. Thanks for writing it.

And Monica, I'm sorry that your friend was among those killed.

I'll never understand, no matter how long I live, why someone can hate so much that they kill.

However, it is also a time to celebrate.... It is an opportunity to recognize the resiliency of the human spirit

Thank you for this. Sometimes in the midst of the commemoration, the preparation, the writing of the memorials, it gets so heavy and dark that a person forgets this.

I agree, it can be a moving experience. Chicago had it's vigil last Sunday night. It was cold and there were huge snowflakes falling. But it wasn't cold enough to hold back tears and remember our brothers and sisters who had the courage to be themselves.

Any time you can get a couple hundred transgendered people in one place, it is a cause for celebration.

TDOR is, basically, our day as T people, although we certainly welcome our GL friends and allies. It's, of course, sad, and was particularly so tonight because we lost a local member of the community. However, there is some joy involved as well. It is, by far, the most attended T gathering in my city. We gather for a service, held at and by the very friendly Presbyterian Seminary, then hold fellowship afterwards. It is the only time that many of us actually can see and talk to each other in same place and time, and every year, we have more and more allies who attend to learn more, or perhaps to support.

I spent most of the fellowship time speaking to a teacher from the Seminary. Her teenage daughter has been finding her place in society and the world, as teenagers must, and now feels she may be F2M. I was very happy to form a list of resources for her to study and read. Our speaker tonight was F2M, and he opened her eyes as to the fact that you must love your child, no matter the outward presentation. Speaking to her reminded me that minds are best opened one at a time.

Yes, TDOR is depressing and sad. It can also be uplifting. But, most of all, it is ours. It's about all we have, as T people, to call our own. That's why we're so mad about HRC trying to sponsor TDOR events, or doing videos about it: they truly don't understand what it means to us, and never will.

Peace...

The Albany TDR is a potluck dinner, no vigil, no candlelight service.....needless to say I refuse to take part in this.

When this was first organized it was the Trans Day of Remembrance, today it's "transgender". I feel deeply that is very disrespectful to those who reject that term as an identity. Now several of you will be ready to jump down my throat for that but let me tell you a couple of things. If I were a victim, the last thing I would want is being labeled in death by a term I oppose in life. Unlike most of those attending these services, I have actually housed many of the group most at risk and did so on my SSI money. Almost no "community" support there or when we were raising money for Katrina TLGB victims.

I will be conducting a private service myself tonight. Remembering the dead isn't enough, tomorrow what will you do to change the climate? My guess for the majority of those who are merely loud voices on the internet, nothing, nothing at all.

Thank you Donna,

I spent most of the day close to tears.
We are having a TDoR service and candlelight vigil here in Sacramento, on Saturday, and I will take your uplifting words, of humanity and community, with me to the service.

This will be my first year of, open, participation at a TDoR service, and I am already emotional just thinking about it.

Thank you again Donna for giving me these words to reflect on.

The local TDOR ceremony I attended last night at a church was beautiful and moving, and some people got teary-eyed, including me.

It was well-attended by transgenders, lesbians, gays, and others wishing to remember those being memorialized and concerned by the violence that can make any transgender anywhere a victim at anytime.

In spite of what many may say and think, we are not in this fight alone. We have many non-trans allies who are willing to stand by us and are willing to risk becoming victims of violence by openly supporting us. My thanks to them.

Those who will do violence to transgenders, will do violence to gays, lesbians, all women regardless of orientation, and the elderly. If we transgenders ask for, and expect, others to help us, let us help them as well.

I will not comment on a certain group in this message.

Cathryn says:

“I will add something that never, never seems to occur to those who promote the term "transgender" as inclusive. When you label someone "transgender" who has paid an enormous price to become a woman (or man) you are denying them that identity. You are taking it away to force them into a third category”

And, Donna Rose replies:

“Although I appreciate your perspective, I disagree with it.”

Many of us (or most of us, if one ever wonders about the tens and tens of thousands of post operative’s that never care to enter the debate, a fact that at least the HRC understands) simply have our surgery, are absolutely glad to leave the past behind, and go on with our lives. We are women (or men), not transgender, and not only resent the term but abhor being included in a group in which we feel we don’t belong. The transgender advocates never acknowledge the fact that we do not identify as transgender (or transsexual for that matter) but simply as either female or male. Instead, they regularly speak out at public events insinuating at every turn that we are all, in one way or the other, the same…with absolutely no respect whatsoever for our position.

A few months ago, out of the blue, I got an e-mail from a friend of mine from college of whom I had not heard from in at least 30 years. In it, he indicated that he had recently heard from another mutual friend that I was “transgender”…he went on to express his support. It is impossible to explain the mixture of emotions that went through my mind as I quickly burned to the melting point at the speed of light. I did not transition to be known to others as “Susan, the transgender.”

What is so hard to understand about that? I ask again…WHAT IS SO DAMN HARD TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT THAT?

How can Donna Rose disagree with the perspective of Cathryn? If Donna Rose, or anyone else, wants to be classified in some third, less than, “not quite”, predominately GLB oriented, gender category I say more power to her. Perhaps Ms. Rose might say if those of us who do resent being labeled by proxy as transgender don’t like the term then simply bail out of the debate…to which we would say fine, we will…just as soon as the transgender movement acknowledges there are many of us who resent the label and those same people publicly exclude us from their narrative and agenda; never one time have I ever seen that acknowledgement.

That…as they say, is the issue.

Personally I wouldn't be seen dead on the TDOR list .. so if I make it PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE .. have me removed !

I Agree with Susan & Cathryn.

I am tired of the endless dead, the shattered lives, the horrors that the LGBT community as a whole has to endure, but the Trans-connunities particularly so.

One of the things that can come out of the popular uprising now going on is a sense of unity, a sense of egalitarian oneness...a determination that this time we all go together, or we fail.

Lets seize the opportunity, for equality, for full citizenship, for marriage, for us all, so that eventually the Dar of Remberance remembers the dead of years past instead of this past year.

Apparently, you didn't read Bil's warning, or maybe it's just that you don't give a shit about what he says. Which is it?

It's a sad commentary that a posting lamenting all the hate and ignorance that leads to trans people getting killed brings out that very same hate and ignorance within our own broader community. Sigh.

Trans or transgender - use whatever word you want - the discomforts so many feel runs deeper than words.

My posting was not about who is some flavor of trans and who isn't. Let's save that discussion for a posting that's not about DOR.

Cathryn has been putting her stamp of approvel on just about anything that has anything to do with the word, phrase, idea, or issue that anyone has about our community for years, without changing to many minds. What is her point if it means nothing and does nothing?

Anyone who wants to call others "men in dresses" and bemoan such personal inclinations as doing something wrong, is part of the problem, not part of the solution and only puts their stamp of approval or empowers anyone who wants to commit a hate crime aganist anyone in this community. God forbid that a lawyer who uses her type of language and argument in a case against a murderer to get them of the hook for killing one of us, actually wins a case using it.

Personally I think that people like Cathryn have no place in this community either. They are of in La La Land someplace, living on Denial Street. But that's Ok also if they like it there. I hear it's a lonely place to live, sparcely populated and comes with it's own version of urban blight of the mind and environmental damage. But most of us get the message, Cathryn is not Transgender. She also does not speak for those on the TDOR list either.

You see Cathryn, the people on the TDOR list don't care what they are or were called then. They would all just like to be alive and allowed to have lived their lives instead of what happened to them. That's the big deal here. Not your personal statements on how you might be referred to while being able to still live.

Most of us remember them because they were people who died because of hate. The same kind that your displaying here because of a word.

Cathryn, well said........ And please know that you are not alone in your opinions about this current "activist" issue and the problems it is causing for others in our community.

Concerning the TDOR, I will say this. Yes it is tragic that many trans men and women are still losing their lives to violence and hate crimes. I do not see, however, how some "activist/s" can look grieving families straight in the eye and say they support them when they know very well that they aren't doing enough in the activist scene to address the root problems of why hate crimes tend to happen to our community in the first place..........The current "leadership" isn't doing the job, plain and simple !!

Many hate crimes happen in areas where poverty, unemployment and lower socioeconomic conditions exist. We tend to know about these conditions all to well because the transgender community still, in most cases, is situated in areas that place us in a high risk category for these crimes. The fact is that many of us are poor and certainly disenfranchised at the discriminatory hands of politicians and corporate America. Yet, no one, especially this author and other trans "activists" will ever address this core issue in a lecture or in a blog, the very issue which is one of the root causes behind hate crimes and the deaths associated with them.

Think about it, if these deceased individuals had lucrative jobs that paid them a salary that could provide them an opportunity to live in more affluent and most importantly SAFE communities, then perhaps the death rates might go down. Yet, these activists will devoutly attend funerals and TDORs and mourn the symptom, but will refuse to address the core problem and even protect those entities who are directly responsible for contributing to it.

So I say this Ms. Rose. I would encourage you to humble yourself to sit down and have a long talk with these grieving families and tell them why you and other transgender activist "leaders" are not addressing the root problems that contributed to their loved one's deaths. As you would say Ms. Rose "OWN IT"

Lastly Ms. Rose, I am struck by the comment you made above:

"There is no room in this world for Hate, so speaking up and speaking out does more than simply honor the memory of those who have been killed simply for being true to themselves."

Well, don't look now, but when the person above decided to speak up and speak out in response to your article (a person who appeared to be true to her opinions and beliefs) she was personally attacked for it along with the aid of other crony protectionists just because she disagreed with your views. So I fail to see how your statement, Ms. Rose is in any way credible, valid or anything more than just hypocritical rhetoric.

Addressing the REAL issues needs to start happening in our community, despite retaliatory acts made by activist cliques, protectionist censorship exercised by media personnel, or coercive tactics contrived by corporate cronies. The public is not stupid ladies and gentlemen and sooner or later they will have the intelligence to figure out what is really going on. I feel that it is only fair that we continue to educate them and authoritative agencies as to what is REALLY going on rather than having them be educated by folks who selectively tell them only what they want them to know..........

Again, I am saddened to continue to hear about these deaths and am extremely sickened at some of the dialogue exchange which has taken place here which totally goes against the very ideology of what those people lost their lives for. I have all but given up hope that our community will one day reach a point where we can all debate freely without hateful retaliation and abuses of power.

Thank you all for your time.