6 Ways to Honour Trans, Two-Spirit, and Gender-Expansive Lives This Trans Day of Remembrance

Nov 19

Trans Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is a day rooted in grief, truth-telling, and community care. Each year, we gather to honour the trans, Two-Spirit, and gender-expansive people whose lives were taken by violence, neglect, and systems that fail to keep them safe. But TDOR is also a reminder: our communities are still here. Still resisting. Still creating joy and possibility.

Below is a guide that brings together what TDOR is, why it matters, how transness and Two-Spirit identities fit into broader liberation work, and how people in Southern Alberta can show up locally.

1. Understanding the Roots of Trans Day of Remembrance

TDOR began as a vigil for Rita Hester, a Black trans woman murdered in 1998, whose death was met with silence, misgendering, and a lack of justice. Over the years it has become far more than a single tragedy. It is a collective ceremony of remembrance and resistance that recognizes anti-trans violence as part of a broader system: one shaped by colonialism, racism, misogyny, and laws designed to restrict bodily autonomy.

Anti-trans harm is not abstract. It looks like governments banning gender-affirming care, which forces people into unsafe medical limbo that worsens depression, suicidality, and physical health outcomes. It looks like policies that bar trans students from sports, remove them from bathrooms, or out them to unsupportive families. It looks like rhetoric that paints trans people as threats—a narrative that emboldens real-world harassment, assault, and murder. These conditions kill not only through direct violence, but through the slow violence of exclusion, poverty, and health care denial.

2. Transness Is Not New, and Gender Has Always Been Expansive

Despite political attempts to portray transness as a modern invention, trans and gender-expansive people have always existed across cultures. Many societies embraced fluidity as a normal part of human life. What is new is the rapid rise in legislation designed to restrict the rights, mobility, and very existence of trans people.

This backlash is not about “protecting children” or “upholding tradition”—it is a reaction to visibility and agency. When trans people live openly, survive, thrive, and build community, it threatens the rigid binaries that uphold colonial and patriarchal power. Attempts to legislate trans people out of public life by banning care, censoring identities, or policing bathrooms seek to push people back into the shadows. That isolation increases vulnerability to violence and deepens the mental health harms that TDOR forces us to confront.

Recognizing the long, global history of gender diversity strengthens our ability to resist these narratives and protect one another. Challenge misinformation when you hear it. Share accurate educational resources, uplift trans creators and educators, and push back on political narratives that frame transness as dangerous, radical, or unprecedented.

3. Honouring Two-Spirit Histories, Knowledge, and Sovereignty

On Turtle Island, gender diversity is woven into long-standing Indigenous teachings. Many nations recognize Two-Spirit people as knowledge keepers, healers, mediators, and essential community members. These roles are respected parts of complex cultural systems.

Colonialism violently disrupted these traditions through residential schools, forced conversion, surveillance, and legislation aimed at erasing gender-diverse Indigenous people. This displacement created conditions where gender oppression and anti-trans violence could flourish. The loss of cultural roles, community safety, and land-based belonging is part of a pattern of state violence that continues to harm Two-Spirit people today.

TDOR must include Two-Spirit stories not as an add-on, but as central to understanding how colonialism creates the conditions for death, disappearance, and continued marginalization. Two-Spirit resurgence led by Two-Spirit people themselves is a vital part of both gender justice and decolonization.

Call to Action:
Support Two-Spirit-led initiatives, attend events when invited, learn from Indigenous knowledge keepers, and advocate for policies that uphold Indigenous sovereignty including land back.

4. Reproductive Justice Is Trans Justice, and Inclusive Care Saves Lives

From the framework of reproductive justice, Pro-Choice YQL sees daily how gender diversity intersects with bodily autonomy. Trans and gender-expansive people face medical systems shaped around a narrow idea of whose bodies matter. Misgendering, gatekeeping, insurance exclusions, and provider bias create barriers that delay care, worsen medical outcomes, and push people out of health systems altogether. These are not small inconveniences—they are life-threatening forms of discrimination.

When gender-affirming care is restricted, people face an increased risk of violence. When sexual and reproductive health clinics refuse care or impose discriminatory policies, people are left without contraception, abortion access, fertility support, cancer screenings, STBBI testing, or affirming care. These gaps directly impact survival and long-term wellbeing.

Gender-affirming, trauma-informed, and trans-inclusive health care saves lives. It strengthens communities. It reduces harm. And it is essential to any meaningful vision of reproductive justice.

Call to Action:
Support trans-inclusive clinics, advocate for policy changes that protect and expand gender-affirming care, and challenge discrimination in health care settings. If you’re able, donate to local funds that help trans people access care in Southern Alberta, like Skipping Stone and Egale.

5. Holding Space for Grief While Moving Toward Action

TDOR is a day of mourning, but grief on its own cannot sustain our communities. Every name spoken, every vigil held, and every candle lit carries a demand for action because the conditions that lead to these deaths are not accidental. Anti-trans attitudes and legislation create environments where violence becomes more likely and survival becomes harder. When governments restrict gender-affirming care, trans people face higher rates of depression, suicidality, untreated medical conditions, and isolation. When politicians and media outlets frame trans people as threats, it legitimizes harassment, emboldens perpetrators, and pushes people out of public spaces. When housing programs, shelters, workplaces, and health systems exclude or discriminate, people are left in conditions where violence, poverty, and death become predictable outcomes rather than exceptions.

Holding space for loss means acknowledging that these deaths are the result of systems that refuse safety, dignity, and care. But it also means refusing to reduce trans and Two-Spirit people to statistics or tragedy. Grief becomes a form of love when it fuels collective action. Building communities where people can thrive requires a commitment to protecting each other, calling out harmful narratives, challenging discriminatory policies, supporting mutual aid networks, funding trans-led initiatives, and showing up in everyday interactions with solidarity rather than silence. Change is not only found in large-scale activism; it grows through consistent, deliberate choices to make the world less hostile and more humane.

Call to Action:
Commit to one sustained practice, whether donating to a local mutual aid fund, attending community safety trainings, advocating against anti-trans legislation, supporting trans-inclusive housing and health resources, or intervening when you witness transphobia.

6. What’s Happening Locally in Southern Alberta, and How You Can Participate

Every year, community organizers, Two-Spirit leaders, and 2SLGBTQ+ groups host events across Southern Alberta to honour TDOR. Check out these events near you:

Lethbridge

Trans Day of Remembrance Vigil

Thursday, November 20 | 7:00 to 8:30pm

McKillop United Church, Labyrinth in the upper hall (2329-15 Ave S)

Transgender Day of Remembrance Gathering

Thursday, November 20th | 2:00 to 5:00pm

University of Lethbridge room TH241

Medicine Hat

Trans Day of Remembrance Vigil

Thursday, November 20 | 6:00pm to 7:30pm

Medicine Hat Public Library downstairs in the Theatre (414 1 St SE)

Trans Day of Remembrance Charity Drag Show