Anti-transgender legislation resonates on Day of Remembrance

A family walks by a pride mural in downtown Raleigh, N.C., just a few blocks from the statehouse. “Can’t I just go back to when I was innocent and untouched by hate?” Statehouse victories for Republicans around the country in this month’s midterm elections are resonating for trans people as they mark Sunday’s Transgender Day of Remembrance, an international observance honoring victims of anti-transgender violence and raising awareness of the threats trans people face. While Moore said the party hasn’t solidified its priorities for the long session beginning in January, Senate leader Phil Berger is already reconsidering a “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” which passed the Senate this year but didn’t get a vote in the House before the session ended. Cooper spokesperson Mary Scott Winstead said the governor will continue advocating for transgender North Carolinians, who too often “face inexcusable and unacceptable violence.” In neighboring Tennessee, the GOP-controlled Legislature announced after election day that its first priority will be to ban medical providers from altering a child’s hormones or performing surgeries that enable them to present as a gender different from their biological sex. “Several states that have introduced these harmful bills have According to a new Human Rights Campaign report, at least 32 trans and gender-nonconforming people have been killed in the U.S. this year, including Sasha Mason, a 45-year-old trans woman killed in Zebulon, N.C. Events for the Transgender Day of Remembrance were planned throughout the world Sunday against the backdrop of a fatal mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado the night before.