‘These were people with hopes and dreams’: 100 mark Transgender Day of Remembrance in Vancouver

Fifty-eight transgender people in the United States have died from violence and suicide this year. Local activists and community leaders want to ensure their names are never forgotten.

On Wednesday night, about 100 people gathered to mark Transgender Day of Remembrance in Vancouver. The national event started about two decades ago to honor the memory of transgender people who have died through violent means, including by gun violence and intimate partner violence.

The ceremony brought together religious and nonprofit leaders, children, families and transgender individuals who say they are tired of the continued violence against their community.

“I am one of the fortunate people, to where I have a family that loves and supports me,” said Remi Ostermiller, a transgender activist. “But it’s hard growing up in a society that does not value you. So many people in my community don’t get to live that long. Will I be murdered before I’m able to retire?”

Local nonprofit Odyssey World International Education Services hosted the event at the downtown Vancouver offices of Southwest Washington Accountable Community of Health.

Rev. Byron Harris, lead pastor at Vancouver Heights United Methodist Church, introduced various speakers, including Rep. Sharon Wylie, D-Vancouver, and Vancouver City Councilor Ty Stober.

Harris, who identifies as queer, acknowledged how the church has negatively impacted the LGBTQ+ community.

“Can we speak truthfully in this moment? The church has caused a lot of wounds within our community. Religious institutions have bruised a lot of people,” Harris said. “But there is some work being done in this area. All hope is not gone.”

As people spoke during the event, a slideshow of the 58 transgender people who died played on a TV screen, showing their photos, age, how they died and where they were from.

“When we were talking about this meeting, I said I wanted there to be a PowerPoint. You can read names, but they’re just names,” Ostermiller said. “Seeing the faces of the people and realizing that they were human, and they were people like you and I. They were people with hopes and dreams.”

Community member Leeza Edwards read all of their names, followed by a moment of silence to honor them.

Rates of violence

Transgender advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith started Transgender Day of Remembrance in 1999 as a vigil to commemorate the deaths of Black transgender women Rita Hester and Chanelle Pickett in 1998 and 1995, respectively.

But more than 20 years later, Black transgender women continue to face violence at disproportionate rates.

Since 2013, the Human Rights Campaign has tracked incidents of fatal violence against the transgender community. This year, it reported the deaths of at least 30 transgender and gender-expansive people.

Of those people, 77 percent were people of color, and 53 percent were Black transgender women.

In 2022, the FBI recorded a record high number of hate crimes related to gender identity, including a 33 percent jump in hate crimes on the basis of gender identity from the year before, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

Gun violence disproportionately impacts the transgender community: To date, more than half of all victims of fatal violence in 2024 were killed with a gun.

Vancouver’s Nikki Kuhnhausen was a 17-year-old transgender teenager who was killed in June 2019. David Bogdanov was later convicted and sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison for her murder.

Wylie spoke of Kuhnhausen and her memory on Wednesday night.

“I was the leader in Olympia that brought back the trans panic bill that was passed in the wake of Nikki’s murder,” Wylie said. “In my floor speech, I had permission to read some letters from her to her mom. I made my point that Nikki, and all of us, are somebody’s child.”

Kuhnhausen’s case inspired local activists to push for a ban on the trans panic defense, where defendants could justify violence based on a person’s gender identity.

The resulting legislation, which was originally introduced in 2019 by then-state Rep. Derek Stanford, passed a year later in Washington. Wylie added an amendment to name the bill the Nikki Kuhnhausen Act.

Flyn Alexander, a social worker, said despite the violence, coming together with the community gives him hope as a transgender man.

“I think in the last few years for myself, these events are very heavy, but I think we need to hold on to that praxis of hope,” Alexander said. “Hope is not something you just feel, it is a practice. I think a big piece of that journey for me has been community. Finding my people, that has been my praxis of hope in a place of grief.”