Today is Trans Day of Remembrance, a day which honors the lives of Trans individuals who have passed, often due to suicide over the emotional toll of their discrimination or by being targets of hate-motivated violence.
CSU Stanislaus’ Student Leadership, Engagement, and Belonging (SLEB) arranged an event today to read the names, ages, and country of origin, if they are known, of transgender individuals who have passed within recent memory.
Theo Alvarez is a transgender man, and it’s his third year working with SLEB, and therefore his third year helping put together the event for Trans Day of Remembrance. Alvarez and his coworkers put a PowerPoint together compiling all of the Trans people they could find in recent years who tragically lost their lives.
“This is a very draining task, because on our end, not only do we see their names, their ages, where they come from, but we also see how they unfortunately met their end. And for a lot of these, it’s very intense,” he said.
“I remember when either me or my coworker were working on this power point we always made sure to check in on each other being like, ‘Are you okay?’ ‘How are you doing? Okay?’ Like, ‘You can take a break, you can take a breather,’” he continued.
Alvarez recalled setting up for the event, describing it as bittersweet. Everything was put in place with diligence and awareness: the decorations, the table with vigil candles, books by queer authors and memorabilia.
“When I was at the check-in table today, when I was setting up, I’ve had some people look at my little table and start laughing or I can like, the looks on their face like they didn’t want me to be there,” he said.
“The one thing to combat all of the hatred that they’re giving is to act like you don’t care, cause they’re doing it for attention, they want to ruin your day,” Alvarez continued.
Outside of SLEB, Alvarez also volunteers at a youth center for LGBT people and sees trans youth and queer youth who are being told who they are is wrong by both strangers and loved ones. He sees how draining and difficult it is for them.
“That’s why we see so many, like, on Trans Day of Remembrance, seeing such young ages, because of these outside factors telling these kids it’s not okay,” he said.
Victor Lopez is another student who works for SLEB, and during the event stepped up and volunteered to take some time reading the names of the deceased.
Lopez says that, in his time in SLEB, he got to know people he previously lacked knowledge about and had never engaged with personally due to his small town upbringing, including transgender and other LGBTQ+ people.
“It took a lot of work to really get to know these individuals, these folks, who really, you know, identify as themselves,” Lopez said, “Who present themselves differently than others. And it took some while to really understand and respect that.”
Through getting to know these LGBTQ+ individuals, Lopez came to understand how they’re persecuted and discriminated against for who they are and feels as though they’re brave for expressing their true selves.
Lopez felt compelled to take the stage and read the names of these transgender individuals who are deceased for such reasons—and also because of their essential humanity.
“This is people who have walked with us, who have lived with us, who have breathed with us, they are just as normal as anybody else,” he said.
Dr. Dana Nakano, a professor of Sociology and head of the Queer Faculty & Staff Association at Stan State, feels it’s important for faculty to show up and support events like this so that students who belong to these targeted and marginalized groups feel seen, heard and that they are safe and supported on campus.
“I think, obviously, this is particularly important in our current moment in this country where we see sort of heightened rhetoric and attacks, right? On trans individuals, queer individuals more broadly. And we want all of our students at Stan State to feel like they belong here, that they’re safe here, and that they can be themselves.”
