HAYWARD, Calif. — About two dozen people from across Southern Alameda County came together in Hayward on Monday night to honor and remember the lives of the hundreds of transgender people who died this year.
During a candlelight vigil held in front of the Alameda County Office of Education, Austin Bruckner Carrillo, president of Castro Valley Pride and a candidate for the Hayward Unified School District Board of Education, joined about 20 other people in reading the names of the dead, which included nearly 400 trans people from around the world, many who died by suicide or in violent assaults.
“What is really surprising this year is the number of young folks on this list,” Bruckner Carrillo told the East Bay Echo. “Seventy-seven percent of them are under the age of 25.”
Transgender Day of Remembrance started with sister vigils held in Boston and San Francisco in 1999, organized by Gwendolyn Ann Smith with the help of Penni Ashe Matz, to honor the lives of Rita Hester and Chanelle Pickett, two Black trans women who were killed in Massachusetts. Soon the vigils began expanding to other locations. Tiffany Woods started holding the vigil in Alameda County, and Bruckner Carrillo began holding the vigil in southern Alameda County about seven years ago when Woods relocated.
“It’s too important of an event not to happen because this is often the only funeral these folks are going to get,” Bruckner Carrillo said.
Bruckner Carrillo told the crowd that it was important to hold the vigil at the Office of Education because of how many young people are impacted by anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and policies coming out of school boards “across the country and in our own backyard.”
“They’re targeting youth sports, gender-affirming care, forcing kids to use restrooms and locker rooms that aren’t safe for them,” Bruckner Carrillo said, “and banning books that in any way shape or form tell a trans kid or a gay kid that they exist, that they matter and that they are loved.”
Locally, Bruckner Carrillo highlighted the fact that the Sunol Glen Unified School District Board of Education recently banned the display of pride flags. Similarly, a member of Hayward Unified’s school board has been reading Bible verses in response to the rest of the board’s refusal to pass a policy that would reveal trans students’ identities to parents, even if it might lead to abuse or being kicked out of their homes.
State legislatures have also introduced a hundred bills targeting trans people since 2020, with 506 bills aimed at limiting LGBTQ rights introduced in state legislatures just this year, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Currently, Republican members of the House of Representatives are trying to add restrictions on gender-affirming care and diversity and inclusion programs, along with bans on drag performances and pride flag displays, to crucial appropriations bills.
Estimates vary regarding the number of people in the U.S. who identify as trans or nonbinary, umbrella terms that refer to people whose gender identity and expression differ from what is expected of the sex assigned to them at birth. Research indicates anywhere from 0.5% to 1.6% of adults are trans, with higher rates for kids.
Trans people face a heightened risk of violence, particularly sexual violence, because of their identity. The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey found that 47% of trans people are sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. Rates were highest for American Indian (65%), multiracial (59%), Middle Eastern (58%) and Black (53%) respondents.
According to a study conducted by the Williams Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law, about half of violent incidents against trans people go unreported to the police. The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey revealed that approximately one in five respondents who had been incarcerated in jail, prison or juvenile detention reported being physically or sexually assaulted by staff at the facility.
Sonia Waraich can be reached at 510-952-7455.
Photo caption: People from across southern Alameda County read the names of the transgender people who died this year in front of the Alameda County Office of Education on Monday, Nov. 20, the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. (Sonia Waraich – East Bay Echo)
