‘To Remember is to Resist’

November 22, 2024
• Needham congregations held a vigil for Trans Day of Remembrance, during which participants honored transgender people killed due to violence.

Some live as their authentic selves, others are unable to share their real identity, but many experience hatred for who they are. Dozens of transgender and gender non-conforming people die as a result of violence every year.

Their lives are honored each year on Transgender Day of Remembrance, observed on Nov. 20. Local faith leaders held the town’s eighth annual vigil at First Parish Wednesday night, where clergy members and speakers reinforced messages of resistance and perseverance.

Since last year, an estimated 36 transgender people have died due to violence, according to the Human Rights Campaign, though it’s likely that many more deaths are unreported or unrecognized. The Trans Murder Monitoring Project reports that at least 350 trans and gender-diverse people were murdered in the last year around the world. A disproportionate number of those deaths are Black trans women and young people of color.

Candles on the First Parish altar represented a total of 68 people from the U.S. who were killed or died by suicide since October of last year. The victims span geographic regions, identities, ages and generations. With the reading of each name, a flame was extinguished, and attendees recited “rest in power” in unison.

Transgender Day of Remembrance allows people to give thanks “for the brief glow of each holy flame,” Rabbi Todd Markley of Temple Beth Shalom said during a blessing.

“We remember those who have died because they would not hide or did not pass or did pass or stood too proud. Today we name them: the reluctant activist, the fiery hurler of heels, the warrior for quiet truth, the one whom no one really knew,” Markley said. “And as many as we can name, there are thousands more whom we cannot and for whom no mourner’s prayers have been said.”

Of the many trans people that passed away, their memory serves as a blessing but also “a call to action,” said Andrew Stein, a trans Needham High School student. Facing discrimination and resistance, “trans individuals persist,” Stein said.

Eli Lavin, also a trans man and the program coordinator at OUT MetroWest, recounted some of his coming-out story. At 15 years old, Lavin was the first at his Massachusetts public high school to come out, and with support from loved ones and state law, he felt protected.

“Through hormones and surgery, I became a teen who hated themselves to an adult that could love themselves,” Lavin said.

That experience, however, is far from universal, Lavin said. Over the next several years, he fears that protections for LGBTQ+ individuals and youth could be stripped away.

And while many gender non-conforming people face hardship, Lavin reminded attendees that “being trans is never the issue.”

“You’re not the problem, transphobia is the one that’s the problem,” Lavin said. “You don’t have to understand someone to love somebody.”

Trans Day of Remembrance started in 1999 as a memorial for Rita Hester, an African American trans woman from Allston who was murdered the previous year. Needham recognized two Massachusetts residents who have died: Mya Finch of Boston and River Nevaeh Goddard of Stow.

The day provides an opportunity to both mourn those lost and “become more aware of and accountable to those who are most vulnerable in our communities,” First Parish Rev. Catie Scudera said.

“Due to the widespread ignorance and erasure of the experience of trans and gender queer people, Trans Day of Remembrance is an important opportunity for us to bear witness to their particular hardships and resilience,” Scudera said.

Kevin Keane, chair of the Select Board, views the annual vigil as an acknowledgement of tragedy but a reminder to move forward, despite the danger that lies ahead. Gathering together, Keane said “we are not going away.”

“The struggle reminds me of the age-old battle between the beach and the ocean,” Keane said. “Initially, it seems that the unmovable rocks in the beach are winning the day, but to the careful observer, it’s the water and the waves of change that shape the beach. Remember, we are the water.”

Before reading Audre Lorde’s “A Litany for Survival,” Rev. John Gage remarked that, while hatred is a powerful force, it’s indifference that will do more harm in the long-term. Gage, the senior minister at the Congregational Church of Needham, told the audience that “to remember is to resist, especially for people the world wants forgotten.”

“To remember that we are, all of us, one body, with no one useless, no one not needed, no one unnecessary for the operation of the body as a whole,” Gage said. “We are remembered when we remember, and we remember those the world would rather we didn’t.”