Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Those of you that are unaware of this day, this
started back in 1999 as a candlelight visual
that was organized by Gwendolyn Ann Smith to
honor Rita Hester who is a black trans female
who was murdered in November 1998. Originally
this came from the San Fran Bay Area as an annual
event to remember all transgender and gender
nonconforming people who were lost to violence
and since then has been has grown to be an observed
day held on November 20th, which is the anniversary
of Chanel Pickett's murder in 1995. Now the HRC
the human rights campaign, they They obviously
advocate for a lot of LGBTQ plus rights So they
have some stats here about the transgender community
since so since 2013 Seven and ten trans and gender
non -conforming victims were people of color
eight and ten were transgender women about six
and ten were black transgender women. And 71
% were killed by a firearm. In the last 12 months
since the last day of remembrance, 43 .9 % of
the LGBTQ plus community, specifically the trans
community has stated that they have experienced
discrimination based on their sex, gender or
sexual orientation. And 57 .6 % said they were
less open about their identities compared to
a year ago, and 58 .5 % said they were less visible
in their daily life than a year ago. So that's
a lot. Let me pause right there. Alex, any thoughts
or any questions from the chats? I'll wait for
questions in the chat. They're on a delay, always
behind us. I will say it's always important for
us to take kind of a minute. Right. To take kind
of a minute to just talk about stuff like this.
You know, I think it's I think it's an important
thing for us to do. I'm glad this kind of lined
out well for us. And so, yeah, I think it's it's
an important thing to think about. It's often
a population that we don't think about. in our
daily lives. And again, I think that that when
we talk about the greater, you know, topic of
violence in our in our country, we need it to
take special note of how many trans people experience
violence, domestic violence, hate based violence,
etc. Yeah. Some other some other stats that I've
seen are trans people are four times more likely
to be victims of a hate crime. And transgender
women have the largest pay gap of any minority
in our country. They make about 40 cents less
for every dollar than like a cis male. So. The
the stats are not they're not great, so. Yeah,
it's this day Definitely kind of sucks. Obviously
there are websites out there that actually track
every single person that Has passed away in the
past 12 months and kind of honors their their
memory. You can learn about them read their story
Which is really great. So I kind of urge everyone
to do that There is one that I do want to talk
about specifically because I found this one I
want to say a few months ago or maybe a few weeks
ago maybe a month ago this actually popped up
on my social media and so this was a post on
social media that was meant to honor this person's
life I had noticed that there were thousands
of comments And obviously I went through the
comments and the majority of the comments were
celebrating the fact that this person had killed
themselves and rejoicing. And it was meant to
be like a thing honoring this person's life.
So I kind of got to know this story pretty well.
But diving into it, Leah Smith, she was a double
major in computer science and statistics. She
was also an advocate for the trans community.
She spoke on panels trying to advance healthcare
for the transgender community. And until this
year's NCAA ban on trans athletes, Leah was a
proud member of the women's swimming and diving
team. She was active in multiple... college clubs,
including the chess club, the Japanese club,
and also women in computer science. Leah encouraged
other trans trans students and said, quote, There
are people in your community that are here for
you and care about you. I'm the thing that is
really frustrating to me is that this person
was obviously very bright. They were trying to
make the world a better place, getting a double
major, very hard to do. Leah Smith took her life
a few months after a transphobic website targeted
her. I'm not going to mention the website name,
but essentially they dead named her, which is
when you use that person's like birth name that
doesn't match their gender. And then kind of
called out and pointed a lot of information out
about Leah Smith caused a lot of hate towards
her. And then also that went on to social media.
And she kind of got bombarded with a lot of hate
messages and everything like that. So This group
targeted this person a few months later She was
found Dead, I believe in a cornfield and her
death was ruled a suicide, which is very very
sad And this is also a spoiler alert. So next
week we are going to be talking about Riley bitchy
gains. Wait, that's not our middle name. I'm
sorry Riley gains who instead of training more
ran her mouth and got fifth, and she will not
let the world fucking forget about that. But
we're going to cover that story next week. Yes,
yes, we are, because, oh, boy, she's she's getting
some crap and she deserves the crap she's getting.
And we don't like her. Jay, thank you for doing
that topic. Thank you for sharing those. Again,
I think that these are are important. I think
it's good for us to take time to do these. And
and ultimately, you know. People let people live
their lives. This is the thing I think that bugs
me the most. I and maybe maybe it's. I don't
understand the rightly gains of the world. I
just don't. And the reason is, is like, why do
you care this much? Right. Like. Like why do
you care? Okay, like what's the deal? Oh, I get
it. Okay, I fucking know I I've met people like
this. I'm I've met them, but I still don't understand
why they care this much She's a fucking sore
fucking loser. She lost and she's pissed about
it, which So this I don't even this is yeah specifically
with the right we're gonna cover this next week
So I'm only gonna talk with this for a minute
She tied for fifth with the trans athlete on
her team Which means the person who won? The
people who came in first second third and fourth
We're all biological women Right all of them
What do you just alright I'm done with that now
We'll talk about this next week. Well, we're
going to we'll do that one because it's going
to be funny. Yeah. Leave leave some stuff down
in the comments below.