Students Participate in Transgender Day of Remembrance to Raise Awareness, Educate

NEW YORK – Students across the country participated in Transgender Day of Remembrance today to bring attention to the need to address bullying and harassment based on gender identity and expression in schools.

GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, is a proud supporter of Gender Education and Advocacy’s (GEA) Transgender Day of Remembrance, an international day of action to bring awareness to the problem of anti-transgender violence.

“Transgender Day of Remembrance is an opportunity to acknowledge one of the most common reasons students are bullied and harassed on campus, their gender identity/expression,” said GLSEN Interim Executive Director Dr. Eliza Byard. “GLSEN and partners such as Gender Education and Advocacy support the idea that every student has a right to feel safe in school, and we applaud the students across the country bringing attention to the necessary educational interventions to ensure safe schools for all students.”

Student participation, which began last week, ranges from candle light vigils to school assemblies to transgender-inclusive school trainings to wearing supportive stickers and armbands.

More than nine out of 10 transgender students (93 percent) reported verbal harassment based on their sexual orientation, gender or gender identity/expression in GLSEN’s 2005 National School Climate Survey. More than half (54 percent) reported physical harassment based on at least one of the aforementioned characteristics and one in three (33 percent) reported assault.

Gender expression is also one of the most frequent reasons students are harassed in schools. In From Teasing To Torment: School Climate in America, a Harris Interactive report commissioned by GLSEN, gender expression is the third most common reason students said other students are harassed in school behind physical appearance and actual or perceived sexual orientation.

Transgender Day of Remembrance is one of four GLSEN Days of Action along with the National Day of Silence, Ally Week and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Organizing Weekend. For more information about Transgender Day of Remembrance or any other Days of Action, please visit, www.dayofsilence.org/tdr.

About GLSEN
GLSEN, or the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, is the leading national education organization focused on ensuring safe schools for all students. Established nationally in 1995, GLSEN envisions a world in which every child learns to respect and accept all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression. For more information on GLSEN’s educational resources, public policy agenda, student organizing programs, research, public education or development initiatives, visit www.glsen.org. A