Transgender Day of Remembrance: Honoring Our Trancestors, Caring for Our Community
For the fifth consecutive year, Kindred Connections Collective (KCC) will bring the internationally observed Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) to Tucson on Friday, November 20th.
TDOR is a time to raise awareness of the violence faced by transgender people, with particular attention to the disproportionate violence experienced by Trans Women of Color, while honoring the lives of our Trans kin who have been stolen through violence. KCC invites the community to gather in remembrance, celebration, and collective commitment to creating practical pathways toward addressing transphobia, violence, and the conditions that place our communities at risk.
TDOR is a free, family-friendly community gathering rooted in remembrance, connection, healing, and collective care. The event features a community resource fair with local partners offering wellness resources, harm reduction services, basic-needs support, educational information, and activities centered on community development and connection. QTBIPOC makers and artists are invited to share and sell locally made crafts, wellness offerings, art, and other creations.
A local Trans community member will offer a keynote reflecting on TDOR’s significance through lived experience, creating space for personal reflection and collective understanding. Throughout the gathering, intentional healing spaces will offer opportunities to hold and move through grief while supporting the community as we move toward collective wellness.
At the heart of the evening, we come together for a collective blessing and breath. The names of Trans kin lost to violence in the preceding year are read aloud, allowing their lives, names, and stories to remain present within our community. This moment of remembrance is held not only as an act of mourning, but as an affirmation that our people are here, our lives matter, and our collective memory carries forward.
A living altar, created by local artists, serves as a central place for reflection, remembrance, and communal grief. The altar weaves together the cultures, histories, and traditions of our peoples, connecting our collective presence in this moment with our Trancestors of the past and those yet to come.
Through TDOR, KCC seeks to create more than a memorial. We create a space where grief can be witnessed, joy can remain present, community can gather, and remembrance can become a commitment to action. We honor those we have lost by tending to those who are still here and building a future where Trans people—especially Trans Women of Color—can live, thrive, and experience safety, dignity, and belonging.
