Transgender Day of Awareness takes place at the end of Transgender Awareness Week on the 20th of November every year. It is a day to remember all of the transgender members of the LGBTQ+ community that have been lost to anti-transgender hate and violence. It is a very emotional day for the entire LGBTQIA+ community but it is such an important time to remember those that have been lost and continue to highlight the struggles that the transgender community across the world are facing. 

 

This year, as part of my role as LGBTQIA+ Community Lead, I helped to organise and host a vigil for Transgender Day of Awareness alongside Coventry Trans Pride and Coventry Pride. The vigil was kindly hosted at The LTB Showrooms in the city centre. We had around 35 people attend to remember the community and mark the day. 

 

We started off the vigil by reading the names of transgender people who sadly lost their lives in the past year, we had different members of the community read out a selection of names, giving everyone the chance to be a part of the vigil and pay their respects. After all the names were read out we held up candles and had a minutes silence to remember all of the members of the transgender community who we have sadly lost. We had several invited organisations give a speech about their organisation and about Transgender Day of Remembrance. Representatives from Coventry Trans Pride, Coventry Pride, Coventry Cathedral, Survivor Sanctuary, The Yard Alumni, and myself from YourSU gave a speech. All the speeches were lovely and gave unique views and perspectives to the community and the resources available in Coventry for LGBTQIA+ people. We then opened up the floor for the community to speak if anyone wanted before giving a closing speech. 

 

It was such a beautiful and emotional event and I am so proud and grateful to have been a part of making the event happen in Coventry. Thank you so much to everyone who came along. 

 

If you would like to be a part of the LGBTQIA+ Student Community you can join for free here: LGBTQIA+ Students