21/11/2024
Wednesday 20th November was Transgender Day of Remembrance, and a wide variety of LGBTQIA, allied and progressive organisations issued their analyses and thoughts for the occasion.
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Wednesday, Nov. 20, marks the Transgender Day of Remembrance, when we mourn the trans victims of deadly and bigoted violence. With the bigoted agenda of the American extreme-right now poised to rise to the highest levels of power, the Democrats have essentially abandoned transgender people, along with numerous other oppressed groups, and huge swaths of the U.S. working class. We need to seize the opportunity to build an independent, militant movement not just to defend our communities from the extreme-right assault on our rights, but to fight for socialism and liberation.
‘Time to get organized and go on the offensive’
On Thursday, Nov. 14 in a cozy art space in San Francisco, California, dozens of trans and queer people gathered on mismatched furniture for a San Francisco Trans March volunteer meeting to prepare for the Transgender Day of Remembrance event. They were factory workers and teachers, social workers and artists, immigrants, Native people, parents, teens, people for whom this was their first organizing meeting, and long-time activists and organizers.
Despite Donald Trump’s recent election victory, the mood was not doom and gloom or fear of the future, but one of readiness to fight back.
“I’m sick of being in meetings that feel like a funeral … it’s not time to mourn our future, it’s not time to run and hide, it’s time to get organized and go on the offensive,” one attendee said at the meeting.
Beyond the immediate task of planning the Transgender Day of Remembrance event, they emphasized the need to continue organizing in the coming period to defend everyone in the targets of the incoming Trump administration — from defending immigrant communities from the threat of mass deportations, to mobilizing on Trump’s Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, as a show of force against the extreme-right agenda that has coalesced around him.
Meetings like this are not just happening in San Francisco, but across the country as millions reckon with the Democrats’ wholesale abandonment of working-class and oppressed people.
“Remain steadfast. These issues were neither born on Oct. 7, nor Nov. 5. The billionaire class is one billion percent dependent on your labor. We are not a persecuted minority, rather, an unorganized majority,” Qween Jean, an organizer with Black Trans Liberation in New York City, said in a statement. “This is not a defeat, this is the clarity we need to escalate our fight.”
Ash Orr, a West Virginia-based organizer for abortion and trans rights, said: “I know things are bleak right now, but this is not the time to turn inward. Our oppressors push individualism because we’re more vulnerable when we’re isolated. Instead, it’s time to connect with your community. Organize, support mutual aid efforts, and remember — we outnumber them.”
Remembering those taken from us
The Transgender Day of Remembrance is an annual commemoration of the trans lives lost in the previous year, including through explicit acts of bigoted violence and the more hidden kinds of structural capitalist violence that impact trans people as an ultra-oppressed sector of society. It’s well-understood by the trans community that any tally of the number of trans people killed each year falls far short of the true total, but there are 60 trans people that we know of who died of unnatural causes since the previous TDoR. The vast majority were trans women of color, who are among the most marginalized and demonized parts of capitalist society.
These deaths have come amid an all-out drive by the extreme-right to eliminate trans people from U.S. public life. In the last year, an incredible 532 bills have been introduced in state legislatures and the U.S. Congress targeting their (our) most basic rights, including the right to access necessary and life-saving health care, to have their identities legally recognized, to practice their culture, to engage in sport, and even to access public spaces like bathrooms. These have only amplified trans people’s long-existing oppression and marginalization, characterized by lower wages, higher rates of unemployment, homelessness, violence, and discrimination across essentially all aspects of public life, from housing access to healthcare.
Democrats’ blame game
Amid this violence and these attacks, the Democrats have postured as the defenders of trans rights. President Joe Biden boasted he “has your back,” despite doing nothing to safeguard trans rights and even aiding in anti-trans discrimination. Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign barely mentioned trans rights, and when questioned, she nebulously pledged only to “follow the law. After Harris lost to Republican candidate Donald Trump in the November election, some in her campaign began to argue that even a lukewarm defense of trans rights had alienated too many voters — a point of view expressed in subsequent days by top Democratic Party leaders and strategists and prominent liberal-leaning journalists from CNN and MSNBC to The Atlantic magazine.
In fact, in the weeks since, Democrats have blamed just about everybody for their loss: Black men, Latin American immigrants, white women, Arab Americans — everybody, it seems, except for the capitalist class!
The result is that oppressed people have been told to be suspicious of each other, to blame and hold other groups responsible for Trump’s victory and the attacks that are sure to come from his administration, rather than the capitalists who President-elect Trump serves. Across social media there have been widespread calls for people to only organize “among their own.” But this is no time to silo ourselves off — that’s exactly what the ruling class wants, because it makes us easier to control and to attack.
The ruling class shifted rightward, not the masses
The Democrats have credited their loss to a supposed “rightward shift” in the American public. But in reality, the rightward shift came from the capitalists who both the Republican and Democratic parties loyally serve and represent.
Once the party more skeptical of launching imperialist wars, the Democrats have become equal warmongers to the Republicans, quarreling only over which foreign adversary to attack first. In a myriad of other ways, the Democrats now compete with Republicans to prove who is more right-wing, from President Biden’s fascistic “border security” regime to “tough-on-crime” posturing by Democratic governors like Gavin Newsom in California and Kathy Hochul in New York, to being united behind supporting Israel amid its genocide in Gaza. It was only a matter of time before they walked back their promises to LGBTQ people and women, too.
That’s why in the November 2024 election, 14 million fewer Democratic voters showed up at the polls, ultimately causing Harris to lose to Trump. In the same election, though, voters also supported progressive ballot initiatives in numerous states, including importantly on abortion, which succeeded even in states that voted strongly for Republicans. A poll from Oct. 24 by Data for Progress also found that a majority of voters were tired of anti-trans ads, were less likely to support a candidate who ran such ads and wanted candidates to talk about more important issues instead of attacking trans rights.
Forging a fightback campaign for trans and working-class liberation
The lessons of November 2024 are clear: the Democrats have abandoned trans people along with numerous other oppressed groups and a wide swath of the U.S. working class. We should take the cue and start building our own independent movement not just to confront Donald Trump as a person, but to overthrow the entire system that he represents.
As revolutionary socialists, we in the Party for Socialism and Liberation understand the oppression of transgender people to be intrinsically part of the capitalist system and the related oppression of women and all LGBTQ people. Trans people are part of the working class, and an attack on them is an attack on the entire working class. We have the same enemies: the billionaire warmongers, landlords, and bankers of the capitalist class, who benefit from our exploitation, marginalization, and division.
The focus on trans people is not arbitrary and doesn’t come in isolation: we need to understand this as the current iteration of the six-decade-long project of rolling back the gains of the Civil Rights Movement. The capitalist class knows that they cannot immediately attack the Black victory over Jim Crow and win, so they have adopted a strategy of creating a mass base out of the right-wing evangelical church for a cultural counter-revolution against the gains won in the 1960s, going after abortion rights, gay marriage, and now going after transgender people. Any victory they win in this campaign is a step towards creating the political conditions for overturning the entire Civil Rights framework.
Trans people’s needs are those of the entire working class: guaranteed access to healthcare, education, housing, and jobs; a healthy environment; and freedom from war.
It’s in the interests of cisgender (that is, people who aren’t transgender) people to fight to defend trans people’s rights because it actually helps solidify their own, too. Banning discrimination against trans people helps protect everybody from discrimination; protecting trans people’s right to healthcare is necessary to protect cis people’s right to healthcare, too; protecting trans people’s right to dress in public as they please, and use the pronouns they please, and use public facilities, helps protect everybody’s right to self-expression in our society.
This is the only way to win. The transgender heroes of our past, from Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson to Leslie Feinberg and Lou Sullivan, the Gay Liberation Front, and ACT UP, all knew the Democratic Party was a graveyard for social movements and organized militant movements to fight for our rights outside of it. More recently, we can learn from the militancy, vibrancy, and creativity of the movement for Palestinian liberation over the last year, which was only possible by unhitching their cart from the horse of the Democratic Party.
Now, as Trump prepares to enter office and bring unprecedented attacks against our communities, we have the chance to make a choice of our own and unleash a united and powerful fight for socialism and liberation directed by us, not by political servants of the billionaire class.
Party for Liberation and Socialism, USA
On Transgender Day of Remembrance we not only mourn the rampant violence against trans people here and abroad, but also highlight the danger posed to trans people by the ascendant fascist right. Trump’s campaign and fascist movements at every level have galvanized their base on the foundation of anti-trans hysteria. On TDOR, we must recommit ourselves to the defense of the trans community from attacks on their access to public space, healthcare, and life
Communist Party of the USA
The crucial backdrop to Labour’s policy on gender and sexuality, as well as on borders, race and anti-protest measures, is the wider culture war. Britain’s rightward shift on these issues has deep roots, but since the Brexit moment of 2016 it has accelerated rapidly. Until 2016, we had open borders with Europe and the Conservative Party was run by free marketeers who viewed themselves as a modernising, liberal force. Since then, the Tory Right has set the agenda. Labour inherits a country with the most restrictive border controls in Europe; far right riots; and a manufactured moral panic against trans people.
So perhaps we were supposed to breathe a sigh of relief when Lisa Nandy used her first speech as Culture Secretary to declare that “the era of culture wars is over”. Speaking to an audience of civil servants the days following the election, she criticised the Tories for sowing “polarisation, division and isolation”. Nandy clearly wanted to signal a new approach for her department, away from lambasting the BBC for being 'woke' and towards “championing the diversity and rich inheritance of our communities”.
Just one week later, Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced his intention to make the Tories’ interim ban on puberty blockers permanent. This policy will deprive young trans people of potentially life-saving treatment, forcing them to go through a puberty they do not want, with no delay and no way out. The shift of Starmer’s Labour on – or rather against – trans rights has been striking. It reflects and reinforces an erosion in public support for trans rights in recent years, with a large majority of British people now saying they oppose making it easier for people to legally change gender.
Streeting claims he is following the advice of the Cass Review, published in April 2024. The review has been criticised by the British Medical Association – the trade union for doctors – for its “exclusion of trans-affirming evidence” and questionable methodological framework. In any case, the Cass Review does not even call for a blanket ban on puberty blockers, though it does recommend restricting the number of people receiving them. The report’s overarching recommendations were to increase the provision of trans healthcare and cut waiting lists by addressing long-term staffing issues, increasing regional access, and other measures. There has been no progress on this front.
In late August, the youth action group Trans Kids Deserve Better occupied the Department for Education in London. They cast a banner down the front of the building: “we are not pawns for your politics”. One can’t help but agree that so far the new Labour government has been unprincipled and reactionary in its handling of this issue. We demand that it reverses course, backing trans people and their rights, and investing in the healthcare they need.
Alliance for Workers Liberty
Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is an international day held on the 20th November to remember and stand in solidarity with our trans siblings whose lives have been lost due to anti-transgender hatred and violence. Transgender Day of Remembrance was originally started in 1999 by trans activist Gwendolyn Ann Smith, to honour Rita Hester who was killed the year before. This tradition has continued on to this day but, sadly, the list of trans deaths is still extensive and rates of mental illness and suicide among the trans population are high.
It is my belief that on TDOR we have a duty not only to remember those we have lost, but also stand together with those who are fighting to have their basic rights respected and upheld. A recent study has shown that approximately half of teenage trans men and boys have attempted suicide at least once, with 42% of non-binary teenagers and 30% of teenage trans women and girls also having at least one prior suicide attempt. Trans lives lost to suicide are not included in the list of names below, but I feel it is important to remember the very real impact anti-trans hatred and bigotry can have on the lives of our trans siblings, particularly in today’s media climate of outright hostility and bias. The social implications of anti-trans hatred are startling. Research by Stonewall (2017) has shown 1/8th of trans employees have been physically attacked by a colleague or customer in the last year, and 51% of trans people have hidden their identity at work for fear of discrimination. Further to this, a quarter of trans people have experienced homelessness, making them among the most vulnerable groups in Britain, and 28% of trans people in a relationship in the last year have faced abuse from an intimate partner.
I could talk about statistics for days, but I want us to do more than talk. There is a coordinated attack on trans individuals across the world, and it is beyond time that we work just as hard to counter it. Transgender people have existed throughout all of history, across all cultures and ages, and we will always exist. We so rarely hear of the Egyptian Pharaoh Hatshepsut who was assigned female at birth but intermittently dressed and ruled as a King, or the Roman Emperor Elagabalus who was said to have offered huge riches to any doctor who could perform sex reassignment surgery. So often are pre-colonial conceptions of genders erased that we assume the current Western view of gender has always been the norm, but this is, in my opinion, tantamount to social violence against trans individuals as well as pure historical revisionism. The impact of anti-trans sentiments hits those marginalised in multiple ways even harder, particularly trans women of Colour, those living on or below the poverty line, and disabled trans people who struggle to access basic human rights such as healthcare and education. It is our collective and personal responsibility to use the platforms we have to amplify the voices of those so frequently denied one. Please stand with your trans siblings today – attend a vigil, even if it’s just at home in your bedroom. Remember those we have lost, stand in solidarity and strength with those we are still lucky enough to have, and take action to uphold the rights of trans individuals across the world.
Amnesty International
20 November, is Trans Day of Remembrance, which was founded by Gwendolyn Ann Smith in 1999 to commemorate the life and death of Rita Hester, a black trans woman murdered in Boston, Massachusetts.
This year, there have been 331 known killings of trans people worldwide that Stonewall and other LGBTQ+ communities and organisations around the world will remember. Sadly, these numbers include the murder of Amy Griffiths, a 51 year old trans woman, in Droitwitch, Worcestershire, in January of this year.
On a global scale, some trans communities are more at risk of fatal violence than others. None more so than the trans community in Brazil, where the majority of killings of trans people have taken place in recent years.
Every life taken has its own devastating circumstances but it is possible to observe that the vast majority of those killed are trans women and transfeminine people of colour. The Trans Murder Monitoring Project noted that, of those whose professions were known, 61% of murdered trans people this year worked as sex workers.
In Europe, the majority of murdered trans women were migrant trans women. Many murders of trans people occur in circumstances including poverty, racism, anti-immigrant and anti-sex worker sentiment and misogyny, which deprive some trans communities of resources and protection and make certain kinds of trans person especially vulnerable to male violence.
Sadly, some trans people – particularly women – are most at risk of fatal violence from cis male intimate partners, such as boyfriends. The stigma, family rejection, limited employment opportunities and social isolation experienced by many trans people can leave them particularly vulnerable to abuse in relationships.
Stonewall and YouGov’s research, LGBT in Britain: Home and Communities (2018), found that one in five trans people had experienced domestic abuse from a partner in the past year – including 16% of trans women.
As is the case for cisgender women, trans women in relationships with cisgender men are at highest risk of the most serious forms of violence. It is important to recognise that, for many trans women, the experience of intimate partner violence and domestic abuse is similar in nature to the kinds of domestic violence other women experience.
Violence against trans people is connected to a wider epidemic of violence against women. It is why we're pleased that since 2018 there has been a commitment to trans inclusion in services providing support to survivors of domestic and sexual violence among the women’s sector in Wales, following a statement by women’s charities in Scotland in 2017.
In many cases, violence against trans people is also driven by toxic ideals of masculinity founded on homophobia and biphobia. On Trans Day of Remembrance, many of us, whether cis or trans, can reflect on how we can work together to end gender-based violence, harassment and discrimination in all their forms.
Stonewall
Trans Day of Remembrance (TDOR) was created in 1999 by trans advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith as a vigil to honor Rita Hester, a Black trans woman murdered in 1998. TDOR continues annually to remember trans people lost to anti-trans violence. This violence is not random—it’s the direct result of systems of white supremacy, misogyny, racism, xenophobia, and transphobia that target us.
The rise in anti-trans sentiment we see today is tied to a broader movement of control rooted in white supremacy and patriarchal structures. Anti-trans laws, attacks on healthcare, and hate crimes are all part of this oppressive agenda. For example, the push for anti-abortion bans and the rise of Christian nationalism aim to control bodies, particularly those who challenge traditional gender roles. Black trans women and trans women of color are especially vulnerable because they exist at the intersection of multiple oppressions: racialized violence, sexism, anti-Blackness, and anti-trans violence.
White supremacy fuels these attacks by constructing a rigid social order where whiteness, cisness, and masculinity are prioritized, while racialized, feminized, and gender non-conforming people are devalued and targeted. Historically, Black and Brown bodies have been seen as disposable, and this continues to drive violence against trans women of color today, further supported by a political climate that seeks to erase their very existence. Misogyny and sexism amplify this violence, with trans women and femme trans people being disproportionately affected by transmisogyny, deepening their vulnerability.
Christian nationalism, which seeks to impose a narrow, exclusionary vision of society based on a white, Christian, heteronormative standard, plays a powerful role in the anti-trans rhetoric we face. These attacks are not just about religion—they’re part of a larger project to consolidate power and maintain a white, cisgender, heteropatriarchal order.
Xenophobia compounds these dangers by disproportionately impacting immigrant and undocumented trans people, especially those fleeing persecution and violence. They often face heightened risks due to their undocumented status, leaving them more vulnerable to violence and discrimination, further exacerbating barriers to healthcare, employment, and legal protections.
Now, more than ever, we must continue to push forward and fight for our future, our dignity, and our rights.
Trump’s re-election as president of the United States underscores the deep-rooted systems of white supremacy, misogyny, racism, xenophobia, and transphobia that shape our society. His platform is built on these pillars, and we now face an era of increased hostility and dangerous policies aimed at erasing our rights. Hate and barriers to essential healthcare and protections will only intensify, yet we are no strangers to survival. For centuries, we have adapted and resisted. The more they try to silence us, the stronger and more resilient we grow.
It’s understandable to feel overwhelmed or even demoralized by the election’s results and the harsh reality of what lies ahead. The weight of these challenges can feel crushing, and it’s important to give ourselves permission to feel these emotions—grief, anger, fear—without judgment. However, we must not allow despair to halt our progress. We are a community forged in resistance, and we know how to fight for our survival. We have done it before, and we will do it again. The stakes are high, but so is our determination. Now, more than ever, we must continue to push forward and fight for our future, our dignity, and our rights.
Trans Lifeline
