Each year, on 20th November, Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR) honors the lives of trans and gender diverse people who died worldwide, both through murder and suicide. By remembering them we not only acknowledge the persistence of hatred against us, but also our unwavering commitment to dismantle it.
GATE, along with thousands of other trans and gender diverse rights organizations, networks and activists, works tirelessly throughout the year fighting against all forms of stigma, discrimination and violence, organizing resistance, supporting resilience and mobilizing towards the inclusion of, and meaningful engagement with, human rights.
Over the past year, our work has been dramatically impacted by the same global processes affecting billions of persons. All around the world, trans and gender diverse people are barely surviving in conditions of poverty, political and social oppression and economic exploitation. We are facing the consequences of war, extractivism economy* and climate change; we face racism every day, everywhere; as migrants, we are dealing with all forms of xenophobia. Today, more than ever, transphobia is being constantly reproduced by political and religious leaders, academics, mainstream media, and even governments, solidifying transphobia as State-institutionalized social policy.
For us, honoring trans and gender diverse people killed or pushed to suicide this year requires us to address the material conditions of where they lived and died, and of the lives of many others that are under constant threat. In this alarming scenario, collective work, collaborative strategic planning and international solidarity are needed more than ever.
Responding to those needs, GATE’s work focuses on:
- Highlighting the role of far-right extremism in provoking and promoting anti-trans violence;
- Producing expert knowledge and political mobilization on depathologization, socio-economic justice and reparations;
- Defending trans and gender diverse people’s human rights at the United Nations;
- Facilitating trans and gender diverse access to participation and engagement in international processes;
- Advocating donors for increased financial support for trans and gender diverse networks, organizations and activists;
- Increasing trans and gender diverse activist capacity to apply for and retain funding for projects related to general, HIV and trans-specific healthcare;
- Networking with trans and gender diverse activists and scholars globally, including allies in diverse human rights movements.
On this Transgender Day of Remembrance, we invite you to join our global effort to recreate our futures. If you are interested in finding out more about our work, learning more about our current initiatives and how to engage with them, or discovering how best to support trans and gender diverse-led activism, email us (gate@transactivists.org) or follow us on social media.
In solidarity,
The GATE Team
*In his last report on Global extractivism and racial equality, Ms. E. Tendayi Achiume, Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, defined “extractivism economy” as the “industries, actors and financial flows, as well as to the economic, material and social processes and outputs, associated with the globalized extraction of natural resources.” She also added that “a defining feature of extractivism that it typically involves the removal of raw materials from territories that were previously colonized, and the processing, sale and consumption of those materials in a global economy that disproportionately benefits nations, transnational corporations and consumers in the global North or so-called developed world; (…) it is clear that the socioeconomic and political devastation that characterizes many resource-rich nations in the global South is a product of a global extractivism economy that is deeply rooted in structural inequality.” A/HRC/41/54.