Trans Day of Remembrance, 2024

Words for the fallen

Wearily, we soldier on.  

Funny, that I said “soldier.” None of us signed up for a war. This isn’t a volunteer effort. This isn’t a fight any of us wants.  

Yet here we are. 

Today we remember our dead. I won’t name names this year. I don’t think I’m capable, at a time like now. I don’t think I’m up to the task. 

Most of our dead are women of color. Most of our dead never reached their 30^th birthday. Most of our dead were poor. It is the same story, almost like clockwork. None of them asked to be killed simply for being themselves. That’s an absurd thing to say and I feel sick saying it. But that is how they were treated. People hate what they don’t understand, and there are so very precious few of us. <1% of the population.

And we are so very beautiful. 

We weep and we mourn for our dead children. For the futures that they won’t ever see. For the potential they had, and for the darkness of a future without them. But none of them asked for a war. None wanted to be a soldier.  

Wearily, we soldier on anyway.  

I do not know if I have the words to express the grief of a day like today. Not after the 2024 election, in which one party mercilessly scapegoated us as dangerous predators, and one party was almost completely silent, save for a few rare voices. Oh, they ran on our existence though. “Vote for us, or the Republicans will go after trans people!” Okay, but will you defend us? Will you fight against them? Will you explain to people that we aren’t the villains they make us out to be? Will you let one of us speak at your convention?  

No. 

We are a convenient victim, or an easy scapegoat.  

And our kids are being killed in a war they never asked for. 

There are always too many dead. May God have mercy on the people who committed violence on our trans siblings for the crime of being alive and transgender. I’m not sorry. I’m angry. And I hope God has mercy on them, because I don’t think I have it in me to be very merciful right now.  

The hate we face is real. Texas, my home state, is on the “do not fly” list for trans people. It’s a state with its own trans population, one I’ve heard panicking, trying all year to move out. Refugees of a moral panic that shouldn’t exist, a population that deserves none of the hate that we receive.  

Beloved, hold your trans friends, trans family, close. Stand up for us. Speak out about us. Protect us. Call your government representatives. Flood their inbox. Make space for us in your communities. Help us get access to medical care. Help us find ways to get to a safe state. We will be facing too much hatred in the coming days and I have a feeling that next year’s death count will be even higher. 

Fellow trans people, I write this through tears. I love all of you. You’ve got to live. I know you’re tired, because I’m tired too. But we have to be soldiers now. We have to stand together. We have to get organized. Most of all, we have to live, and be ourselves as loudly and as bravely as we can be.  

We soldier on. 

May the ones who have gone before us find rest. May their names be a blessing to us.  

And may we live to fight another day.