A walk to remember
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Sarah Alltop reads the names of victims of violence during the program, which is held annually.
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
A community came together to honor transgender people who have died due to violence during the program.
Participants held candles Monday evening as they walked to honor transgender people who have died due to violence, hate and discrimination after a program that was held at First Presbyterian Church, organized by Washington County Gay Straight Alliance.
According to GLAAD, the Transgender Day of Remembrance was started in 1999 by transgender advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith as a vigil to honor the memory of Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was killed in 1998. The vigil commemorated all the transgender people lost to violence since Hester’s death, and began a tradition that has become the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
The names of victims were read during a program that was held at First Presbyterian Church, organized by Washington County Gay Straight Alliance on Monday.
A study by Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a civil rights organization for LGBTQ Americans, showed that the murders of transgender Americans in 2017 was the deadliest year recorded by the organization since it began keeping track in 2013. In 2017, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) recorded reports of 52 hate violence-related homicides of LGBTQ people, the highest number ever recorded by the organization. The number represents an 86 percent increase in single incident reports from 2016. That is the equivalent of one homicide of an LGBTQ person in the U.S. each week.