Transgender Day of Remembrance will be observed with vigils and other events around the world.

International Transgender Day of Remembrance – 20 November -  is to remember those who have been killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice.

International statistics compiled by the recently released  Trans Respect Monitoring Project identified 238 trans people killed throughout the world in the past 12 months.

Over the last decade, more than one person per month has died due to transgender-based hate or prejudice, regardless of any other factors in their lives.

This trend shows no sign of abating.

The Day of Remembrance is held in November in honour of Rita Hester, whose murder in Boston, USA, on 28 November, 1998, lead to the ‘Remembering Our Dead’ web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999.

Rita Hester’s murder – like most anti-transgender murder cases – has yet to be solved.

Although not every person represented during the Day of Remembrance self-identified as transgender — that is, as a transsexual, crossdresser, or otherwise gender-variant — each was a victim of violence based on bias against transgender people.

But even now, when people are more sensitive than ever to hatred-based violence, the deaths of those based on anti-transgender hatred or prejudice are largely ignored.

And so the Transgender Day of Remembrance serves several purposes.

It raises public awareness of hate crimes against transgender people, an action that current media doesn’t perform.

It publicly mourns and honours the lives of our brothers and sisters who might otherwise be forgotten.

It reminds non-transgender people that we are their sons, daughters, parents, friends and lovers.

It gives friends and allies a chance to step forward with us and stand in vigil, memorialising those who have died by anti-transgender violence.

Putting on the Day of Remembrance in schools can also be used as a way to educate students, teachers, and administrators about transgender issues, so we can try to prevent anti-transgender hatred and violence from continuing.

Anyone with any doubts at all about the need for such a day, click here to read not only who and where they were, but the horror of how they died.

Their names will be read out at events around the world at vigils and remembrance events.

Since Trans Murder Monitoring by Transgender Europe began in 2009, 1,374 individuals in 60 countries have lost their lives due to hate crimes, 108 were individuals under the age of 20.

An important and extremely troubling fact is that 22 of those 108 deaths were just in the first 10 months of this year. In ten months, we have seen the highest number of deaths since monitoring began.

However, campaigners warn the true figure is likely to be higher as transphobic crime remains under reported – and not all jurisdictions document or treat the cases accordingly.

That number does not include the number of transgender individuals who take their own lives each year because they have been told what they are is wrong.

Nor does it factor in violence, both sexual and physical, against trans people, or the verbal abuse and harassment they are often subjected to.

There is an immediate need to call attention to the violence that faces the transgender community, and an immediate need to ensure that steps are taken to stop it.