A candlelight vigil to honor the lives lost due to anti-trans violence was held Wednesday evening at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Urbana-Champaign.
The Transgender Day of Remembrance event, hosted in conjunction with Uniting Pride of Champaign County, was an opportunity for transgender, non-conforming and the entire queer community and allies to gather, said Beth Monhollen, reverend of the UU Church.
“I, as a minister, I, as my congregation, can’t change the entire world, can’t by ourselves make this community safer and more inclusive,” she said. “But when we are in coalitions and collaborations with, with all of our community partners, we’re all stronger. We’re all safer and we’re all thriving more than we would otherwise.”
Across the globe, at least 350 lives were lost in the last year due to anti-trans violence, according to Transgender Europe. Nov. 20 marked the 25th year of National Transgender Day of Remembrance.
The vigil included speeches and poetry from speakers who shared their feelings and thoughts about anti-trans violence.
Jaz Routon, a faculty member at Parkland College, spoke about how trans people of color are the most severely impacted by trans hostility and violence.
“My main motivator was just wanting to ground us in the reality of who, out of our queer community, is facing a lot of the hostility and a lot of the violence,” they said. “When I was involved with Trans Day of Remembrance last year, it just wasn’t named, it wasn’t vocalized. And it just hurt my soul… considering all of the oppressive systems that have placed them in vulnerable situations.”
Following the speeches, attendees lit their candles. Monhollen then read out the names, ages and locations of 69 trans individuals who died over the last year in the United States. After each name, Monhollen and the attendees responded with, “You are not forgotten.”
Uniting Pride of Champaign County is a nonprofit LGBTQ+ resource center that serves east-central Illinois. Josh Gavel, the interim director of operations of Uniting Pride, said it’s important to step back and take perspective.
“You can claim to be an ally to the trans community, and in general, non-conforming people, but if you’re not truly in the thick of it, getting hit by the same things that they’re getting hit with, then you’re not really an ally,” Gavel said. “It’s just really important to remember that our most vulnerable community members need us now, more than ever, and they have shouldered the burden of the movement since the beginning.”
Aiden Novinska, the operations coordinator for Uniting Pride, said that things are really bad for the LGBTQ+ community as a whole.
“We’ve been subjected to countless attacks on our livelihoods in the past eight years now,” he said. “I don’t want to mince words — even though we live in a more accepting community and in a more accepting place than a lot of other people, things are still happening, right in our own backyard. You can’t turn a blind eye to it.”
After the event, community members socialized with each other outside the chapel and hugged each other goodbye.
“The purpose is, first and foremost, to always to remind people of how far we’ve come — always to remind people that we have fought hard and long to get where we are,” they said. “The call to action around queer joy — like it is so important to have queer joy, to have trans joy, because that is one of our most powerful tools in the tool belt.”