Be a Mensch this Transgender Day of Remembrance

This guest post is by one of our Student Ambassador alumni, Emet Tauber

Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance, and event where once a year we come together to commemorate and honor the lives of transgender people who have been taken from us due to violence and transphobia. 

This day is a solemn day to reflect on all that we have done and all that we still must do to make this world a safer place for transgender and gender non-conforming people. In the world of K-12 schools this means providing equal bathroom access, equal sporting access, the proper use of names and pronouns for every student, and the right of every student to express their gender how they want to. We have come a long way in the past few years, but we still have a long way to go. 

The events of the past few weeks in California have reminded us just how cruel the world can be to people they don’t understand. As activists and representatives of the queer community, we must educate others on who we are and why transgender student rights are of the upmost importance. 

Today is also a time in which we can and should step back in order to let individual voices be heard across our communities. We should recognize our relative privileges and let people who might not otherwise be heard, have their stories resonate from coast to coast, and classroom to classroom. Personally, tonight I will be speaking at Stetson University in Florida about the intersections of my identity as a Jew and as a person of trans* experience. In my remarks I will remind students of the Jewish value of menschlichkeit, being a good person and a good neighbor to those around you. 

Tonight, be a mensch and support your fellow students in their time of reflection and sorrow over the loss of over 280 trans* identified people this year. I hope your day will be full of reflection and thought about how to take action for transgender people and gender non-conforming people everywhere. 

Learn more about how you can Remember, Honor, and Act this Transgender Day of Remembrance. 

Editor's Note: Trans* is often used to connote a diversity of identities under the "transgender umbrella." These identities include, but are not limited to: transgender, transsexual, transmasculine, transfeminine, genderqueer, agender, third gender, two-spirit and mahu. The usage originates from the search convention where an asterisk indicates a wildcard, where "include anything following"