Today, November 20, is Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day to remember, celebrate and honor victims of hate crimes.
Laura Klinger of pointer.org wrote:
November 20 is the Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day when activists and supporters take time to remember the transgender victims of homicide of that year. Compared to other LGBT people, transgender women of color are disproportionately likely to be victims of violence, according to a report from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. As journalists, we must be careful to afford victims of violence the dignity of being written about respectfully.
For more from Klinger, see
http://www.poynter.org/...
USA Today's Judith Valente wrote:
A study in 2011 by The Williams Institute at UCLA estimates that about 700,000 Americans are transgender. Dignity USA, a Catholic advocacy group for gay and transgender people, puts the number at 1% of the U.S. population. A definitive count is hard to determine since many transgender people go to great lengths to blend into society.
Several high-profile transgender individuals recently have been in the news. In the fashion world, transgender models Andrej Pejic and Claudia Charriez are the latest rage. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., has publicly defended her son Rodrigo, 28, who was born Amanda. Chelsea Elizabeth Manning, an Army soldier convicted of passing classified documents to WikiLeaks, began life as Bradley, a male. Manning, who is serving time in the all-male Leavenworth Federal Prison in Kansas, has sued to receive hormone treatments, but the Pentagon has refused to pay for them.
"Transgender people live in a world that categorically excludes us," says Owen Daniel-McCarter, a Chicago attorney and transgender rights advocate. "Not just excludes us, but doesn't recognize our existence."
For Valente's full article, see
http://www.usatoday.com/...
More resources can be found @ http://tdor.info