I was reminded by the Task Force Weekly Update that arrived in my inbox today that this day is the 9th annual Transgender Day of Remembrance (never mind the seven up there in the banner thingy, which is two years old). Here’s the Task Force’s statement in remembrance of the day. This day, most especially in light of the recent trans-phobic ENDA debacle, helps underscore the importance of understanding how, as the Task force statement says, “anti-transgender bias leads to discrimination and violence.”

Dana at Mombian has a number of valuable links to various blogs and organizations of interest in her post on it today. Several I knew about; TransParentcy I didn’t, and am grateful to now know.

Lest one imagine that all is ducky in the putative queer capital of North America, I would note that one of the people whose 2007 murder is remembered today is Ruby Rodriguez, who was killed in San Francisco (Blabbeando posted the press release about a vigil for her back in March; careful readers will note that two other transwomen of color had been murdered in the months previous).

It gets even closer to home, for me. Gwen Araujo was murdered a scant thirty miles south of where I write this today, in a town so close to where I grew up that my own high school’s sports teams played there. Her death in October of 2002 brought national attention to the epidemic of violence against transpeople. The Transgender Law Center in San Francisco keeps a page on its website listing relevant news regarding the legal process following her murder, including the trials of her murderers, and of a bill — named after her — introduced to limit the use of so-called “panic” defenses.

Today, may we remember the dead, and may the need for such remembrances one day become obsolete.