Transgender Day of Remembrance

During this week’s Council meeting, the Council adopted a resolution recognizing November 20, 2024 as the 25th anniversary of Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR) in the City of Boston.

Transgender Day of Remembrance, observed annually on November 20, honors transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive individuals who have lost their lives to anti-transgender violence. The tradition, rooted in Boston, was inspired by the tragic stories of two Black transgender women, Chanelle Pickett and Rita Hester.

Chanelle, a 23-year-old transgender woman, was brutally murdered in 1995 by William Palmer, a man with a history of predatory behavior toward transgender women. Chanelle and her twin sister Gabrielle, also a transgender woman, faced severe harassment at work after being outed as transgender. This led to their firing and a period of poverty. During this time, Chanelle met Palmer, who later murdered her by strangulation. Palmer was acquitted of murder using the “trans panic defense” and served only two years for assault and battery, despite the brutal nature of the crime.

Rita Hester, a 35-year-old transgender woman living in Allston, was murdered in 1998, stabbed 20 times in her apartment. She had previously spoken out about the lenient treatment Palmer received, expressing fears it would send the wrong message. Despite multiple efforts by the community to have the media report her name and pronouns correctly, Rita, like Chanelle, was misgendered and disparaged in local press coverage. This led to a large community gathering and a vigil in her honor, followed by continued protests over the media’s handling of her death.

In response to the violence and misrepresentation, transgender activist Gwen Smith created the “Remembering Our Dead” project in 1999 to memorialize transgender victims of violence. This grew into the first TDoR, held in Boston and San Francisco on November 20, marking the anniversary of Chanelle Pickett's death.

Twenty-five years later, the violence against transgender and gender-expansive people, particularly transgender women of color, continues at alarming rates. Issues like underreporting, misidentification by authorities, and media misrepresentation remain persistent, complicating efforts to fully recognize the scale of this ongoing epidemic.

The Council encourages all government agencies, public and private institutions, businesses, and schools to take meaningful actions to support and affirm the equitable rights, freedoms, dignity, treatment, health, and safety of Boston’s transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive individuals.