GU Pride, a student organization that represents the LGBTQ+ community at Georgetown University, hosted a vigil Nov. 20, the Transgender Day of Remembrance, to honor transgender lives lost from October 2023 to September 2024.
During the vigil, students and faculty members read aloud the names of transgender people who were killed in the United States this year as a result of transphobia, along with their ages and causes of death. Vigil participants held plastic candles around a transgender pride flag and stood for a moment of silence after the names were read.
Gisell Campos (CAS ’25), the co-president of GU Pride, said they wanted the vigil to remind community members to be there for one another.
“It’s always going to be upsetting,” Campos told The Hoya. “It’s always going to be hard to have this event. The fact that we get to have and get to honor their lives is so beautiful, and especially over the next four years, I think this is an event that will only get heavier but only bring the community more together. So, yeah, I hope that people take away a sense of hope, but also a sense of responsibility to be there for each other.”
Transgender Day of Remembrance was established in 1999 to honor Rita Hester, a transgender woman murdered in 1998. After 1999, it became a tradition to remember and mourn the transgender people lost to transphobic violence each year on the anniversary of Hester’s murder.
Jackie Early (CAS ’26), the director of outreach for GU Pride, said her hope for the vigil was to honor lives lost as more than a statistic.
“The major impetus behind this is to ensure that trans lives lost this year and all years aren’t lost to a statistic,” Early told The Hoya. “I think a lot of people are used to encountering or finding out about trans violence as a statistic, right? We often see statistics of anti-trans bills and things of that nature, but this is the very tangible impact and personal impact of what this day does.”
According to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, at least 36 transgender people have been killed because of their identity since last year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance. In particular, violence against transgender individuals in the United States disproportionately targets young transgender women of color.
Vigil participants stood in a circle silently holding candles as Early, Campos and students and faculty who volunteered read the names of victims killed in the past year.
Ashley VanMeter, a professor of neurobiology who read names during the vigil, said she was impressed by the turnout at the vigil, especially by Georgetown community members who are not members of the trans and nonbinary community.
“One thing I was really happy to see was how many people were there,” VanMeter told The Hoya. “It was quite a bit larger of a group than I was anticipating. And not everybody who came was trans, so I think that’s a really positive sign that the Georgetown community does care.”
Amanda Phillips, an associate professor of English, film and media studies, women’s and gender studies and American studies, attended the vigil and said showing up for their students was important.
“I’m a faculty member, and I’m part of a group of faculty and staff who are trans or nonbinary, and so for us, it’s really important to show up for the youth and to live by example and show them that we’re here,” Phillips told The Hoya. “It’s possible to live a life that’s successful when you’re trans or nonbinary, even when there’s so much in the world that might say otherwise. And so I’m here to support the students. I’m here to stand up for the trans community.”
Phillips, who read names during the vigil, said it was meaningful to do so as a member of the trans and nonbinary community.
“The student organizers had asked for trans and nonbinary-identifying volunteers to read the names for tonight,” Phillips said. “I think it was important to them to have representatives of the community hold that responsibility. And so as a member of the community, I volunteered to do that.”
VanMeter said reading the names out loud was a way to authentically remember the lives of those lost.
“I think another thing that’s really important about reading these things aloud is that we are recognizing them for who they want to be seen as,” VanMeter said. “In many cases, in police reports and news articles, they’re misgendered and their given name is used instead of the name that they chose. So this is our community coming back and saying, ‘No, wait a minute. This is who this person was. These were their pronouns and this was their name.’”
Campos said the vigil represents the importance of remembering those lost.
“As a nonbinary individual, I think an event like this, it’s important to bring up,” Campos said. “As important as it is to talk about trans joy and what we can do to foster trans communities, it’s also important to acknowledge those that we lose, especially when they’re killed. It’s important to me to be there for my community and to be present and to honor those lives.”
