LGBTQ community members and allies gathered this week to mourn and remember transgender people murdered around the globe. In Nanaimo, the Transgender Day of Remembrance was held at Sands Funeral Chapel Cremation and Reception Centre on Thursday, Nov. 20, honouring 281 transgender people who were killed over 12 months between 2024-25. Organized by the Nanaimo Pride Society, Nanaimo’s candlelight vigil also counted lives lost to suicide, bringing the total to 360 – 25 pages of names that were read individually, along with the country they were from and age they died. Lauren Semple, Nanaimo Pride president, spoke at the ceremony, telling attendees the vigil serves to remember all the victims whose lives were taken by anti-transgender violence and hate. “This is not an easy gathering,” Semple said. “The Transgender Day of Remembrance asks as to look directly at loss, to look directly in the eyes of grief and the very real violence that trans, two-spirit, non-binary and gender non-conforming people face in our communities and around the world. “Here in Canada we like to tell ourselves a story that we are safer, that things are good here and in some ways that is true, in some ways there has been progress, but the reality is still very, very hard and uncertain.” Semple quoted a recent national survey [https://www.canada.ca/en/women-gender-equality/gender-based-violence/facts-stats.html] that reported trans people were twice as likely as their cisgender counterparts to report unwanted sexual behaviours against them in public, at 58 versus 23 per cent, and three times as likely to report sexual harassment and violence in the workplace, 69 versus 23 per cent. While there are human rights protections in B.C. and Canada, she pointed to a “wave of political attacks” on the rights of trans people, including in Saskatchewan where there is a bill that would discipline school staff for using a trans person’s name or pronouns without parental consent. “In Alberta, Premier Danielle Smith spent this transgender week of awareness using the notwithstanding clause to protect a package of incredibly harmful laws that restrict gender-affirming health care for youths, ban trans girls and women from sports and force schools to out students to their parents. These laws target a tiny, tiny group of young people who already face higher rates of bullying, homelessness and suicide.” Even British Columbia isn’t immune from anti-trans political attacks, she said, pointing to a bill brought forward by One B.C. earlier this year which would have banned puberty blockers and other gender-affirming care for minors, restricted public health coverage for transgender British Columbians and opened up health-care providers to lawsuits for treating trans people. The bill failed at first reading. “The fact that it was tabled here should be warning these ideas are being tested, that the rhetoric is not that far from our doorstep,” Semple said. According to Trans Europe and Central Asia [https://tgeu.org/trans-murder-monitoring-2025-reveals-new-trend-in-anti-trans-violence-systematic-targeting-of-activists-and-movement-leaders/], a trans-led nonprofit which tracks the numbers, this year’s murders show “a dangerous shift” with a growing number of victims being trans movement leaders and activists, accounting for 14 per cent of reported murders. The report notes that this suggests an “attempt to silence those fighting for trans rights worldwide.” Following the ceremony, Semple told the News Bulletin it’s impossible not to feel rage and anger at the need for action. Earlier in the ceremony, she instructed people that while it is important to mourn the dead, people also need to commit to “fight like hell for the living.” “Individual allyship is powerful and important and everyone here tonight was showing that, but it is not enough to change power and change policy,” she said. “That is really where we need to stand up and speak up and help stand for the trans community and get us through what is raking back of rights and increasing violence and hateful rhetoric … If people don’t start speaking up and voting for human rights, for trans rights, when they hit the ballot box, we are going to continue to see this happen and it is only the beginning of the attacks and harm the 2SLGBTQIA-plus community will feel as a whole.” The Transgender Day of Remembrance began in 1999 as a vigil by Gwendolyn Ann Smith to honor the memory of Rita Hester, a transgender Massachusetts woman killed in 1998.
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