Flickering candles at the Human Rights Monument on Sunday night marked the 13th International Transgender Day of Remembrance.
A crowd of approximately a hundred people stood around the monument at 7 p.m. holding candles while two people read out the names of the 221 transgender people who were killed in the last 12 months.
The list of names of the murdered individuals was provided by Transgender Europe’s Trans Murder Monitoring project (TGEU).
Alex Thomas, who works at Pink Triangle Services on Bank Street, read from the list at the candlelight vigil.
“The more people know about transgender issues and what they face, the more easily they will be able to accept them and not subject them to stigma and violence and harassment,” she said.
The memorial started in the U.S. to honour Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was murdered on Nov. 28, 1998. Her murder – like most anti-transgender murder cases – has remained unsolved, according to Transgender.org, a website that monitors the murder cases.
A disproportionate number of transgender people are murdered and a great number of them are sex workers,” said Kay Dundas, a transgender woman in Ottawa. “Transgender people go into sex work because it can be difficult to get a job. You have to eat and pay the rent. Unfortunately, a lot of them get murdered.”
The Trans Murder Monitoring project reported that since 2008, over 755 transgender people have been murdered in 51 countries. It notes the actual figure is likely higher because the number represents known cases only.