Trans Day of Remembrance memorial set for Monday

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This article was published 16/11/2023 (831 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For the 15th year, residents will gather on Monday at Knox United Church in Brandon to commemorate the international Transgender Day of Remembrance.

According to the chair of Brandon Pride, transphobic and homophobic rhetoric espoused at Brandon School Division meetings over the past six months has illustrated that issues facing 2SLGBTQIA+ people are present in the Wheat City, but also that large portions of the community support them.

The first day of remembrance worldwide was held in 1999 to honour the memories of three transgender black women killed in Massachusetts earlier that decade: Monique Thomas, Chanelle Pickett and Rita Hester. It has continued since as a way of remembering those affected by anti-trans sentiments and violence.

Pride chair Alyssa Wowchuk told the Sun on Wednesday that the day has been observed in Brandon since 2008, co-organized by Brandon Pride, Knox United Church, Brandon and Area PFLAG and the Sexuality Education Resource Centre’s Brandon location.

“It’s very sombre that an event like this continues year after year,” Wowchuk said. “But it’s also really important to acknowledge and bring awareness and also honour those who have passed because of violence and suicide.”

She said if you look at the statistics about the transgender people from Canada being remembered this year, the majority have died from suicide. In the United States, Wowchuk said the majority of deaths are attributed to suicide or gun violence and frequently occurred in places where anti-trans or anti-2SLGBTQIA+ legislation has been passed.

A website tracking trans deaths, tdor.translivesmatter.info, lists 391 worldwide from Oct. 1, 2022 through Sept. 30, 2023.

At the May 23 school division board of trustees meeting where a proposal to ban books featuring discussion of sexuality or gender was discussed, some of the presenters spoke about having grown up gender diverse or queer in Brandon and having to be in a community that was not always so accepting of their identity.

With discussions on the same topic persisting, Wowchuk said Brandon Pride has received letters and comments from people wondering if their child will be hurt because of it, anger from those with anti-2SLGBTQIA+ views and those who are tired and sad from hearing from fellow community members who don’t believe queer people should be represented in media.

The co-ordinator for Brandon and Area PFLAG, Laura Crookshanks, said in a phone interview that education about trans issues is needed not just in Canada but across the world, but she’s heard from local families who have been affected by the vitriol in the community this year.

She said she has been involved with Trans Day of Remembrance in Brandon since the beginning, first as a congregant at Knox United Church and then as a committee member at PFLAG.

The local events got their start, she said, when students from Brandon University’s LGBTQ Collective approached the church to see if there was interest in hosting a local ceremony.

“Those of us who serve on the committee and other folks who help us out on the day of the event feel it’s important to recognize that this is a sombre event,” Crookshanks said.

“It’s a very important time to remember that life is not easy for people who are trans or questioning sometimes and we need to remember those people. There are hundreds and hundreds of names that we read every year. It indicates to us that there is still work to be done to educate people to try to make our society more accepting.”

This year, there will be a memorial service on Monday from noon to 1 p.m. that will feature a speech from a yet-to-be-determined guest speaker, time for reflections and the reading of names of transgender people lost over the last year followed by a light lunch.

Crookshanks stressed that while the service is held at a church, it is not a religious service, there is no preaching and everyone is welcome to attend. It’s held at noon so that people with jobs can attend during their lunch breaks.

“It’s important for people to be there to show by their presence — the same as at a Remembrance Day service for veterans — that those lives matter,” she said.

For those who cannot attend in person, the service will be livestreamed on the church’s YouTube page at youtube.com/@TheKnoxKonnexion.

In the evening, there will be a candlelight vigil at the church starting at 5:30 p.m. with cookies and refreshments served afterwards.

The promotional materials for the event refer to it as the “Trans* Day of Remembrance.”

“Many people view ‘transgender’ as an umbrella term for a lot of gender-diverse individuals,” Wowchuk said. “Here in Brandon, we’ve always included the asterisk in the past to include anyone who identifies under that umbrella.”

» cslark@brandonsun.com

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