This year’s Gender Identity Ceremony of Remembrance will take place at 8 pm on Saturday 20th November in the Unitarian Church on Stephen’s Green, Dublin.
The non-denominational ceremony is intended to be both a remembrance and a celebration of Trans and non-binary people’s lives. Now in its 16th year, the event was started by Trans rights activist, Lynda Sheridan and has been co-organised by Sara R Phillips, Chair of TENI (Transgender Equality Network Ireland) since 2006.
She describes her motivations behind establishing the event, “This remembrance was inspired by people whom I met and some who have died simply because of gender identity, and some who are living, very inspiring people, who continue to be out there in public simply living a true life.
“We are real people with real good decent lives, families we love, jobs we try to keep, trying to live without fear and misunderstanding. We are not born crazy or become crazy, we were simply assigned the wrong gender at birth based on outdated methods of gender identity.”
This year’s ceremony is particularly poignant as it will be the first in-person event since 2019. As Lynda points out, “I aspired to give the Trans and non-binary community a spiritual home. It’s not the same when you can’t be together in person”
The ceremony coincides with the International Trans Day of Remembrance (TDoR). Founded in 1999 as a day to memorialise members of the Trans community who had been murdered.
According to a list compiled by Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide (TvT), a project established by TGEU (Transgender Equality Network Ireland), this year saw the highest ever number of murders of Trans people. The list reported 375 deaths, the majority of whom were Trans women or Transfeminine. This figure is up from 350 people in 2020.
The highest majority of deaths occurred in Central and South America with up to 33% happening in Brazil alone. However, it is thought that this figure is an underrepresentation as many of the attacks that occur go unreported.
For more information on the ceremony click here.
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