Today marks the 9th annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, “set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice.” The event organizers explain:

The event honors Rita Hester, whose murder in 1998 kicked off the “Remembering Our Dead” web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999. Since then, the event has grown to encompass memorials in dozens of cities across the world.

The Remembering Our Dead site has a list of those who were killed in 2007 because of anti-transgender bias.

My thoughts are with the trans community today. For insightful reflections on gender and trans issues, try (en)Gender, Transadvocate, and many of the writers at The Bilerico Project, including Marti Abernathy and Rebecca Juro. (There are many other sites as well, but the ones above should give you enough linkage to get started, should you be interested in finding more.) I’d also be remiss if I didn’t provide a link to TransParentcy, an organization dedicated to transgender parents and their children. I do not know if any of this year’s victims had children, but each was somebody’s child once. As a parent, and as a human being, that is enough to make me bow my head in silence today.