By Arnie Alpert, Active with the Activists
Arnie Alpert spent decades as a community organizer/educator in NH movements for social justice and peace. Officially retired since 2020, he keeps his hands (and feet) in the activist world while writing about past and present social movements.
CONCORD—The sky was already dark when people began to gather by the Franklin Pierce statue in front of the State House in downtown Concord Wednesday evening. Jessica Goff passed out electric candles while another volunteer set up 30 jars on the granite step, placing a candle in each and a small card with a portrait and a description leaning against the front.
Each jar represented a transgender person who had been murdered in the past year.
It was Concord’s Transgender Day of Remembrance, drawing upwards of 150 people for a solemn community vigil.
After two brief speeches, volunteers came to the microphone and read the descriptions of those who had been killed.
Quanesha Shantel, who often went by Cocoa among her friends and has also been named in some press reports as Juchuan Hamilton, had, in recent years, been involved in ballroom and drag performances across the Southeast US and Chicago. Friends described her as “radiant” and “stunning.” Cocoa’s mother, Toi Ni’Cole Ratliff, remembers Cocoa as “happy and full of joy.” Tragically, on Sunday, November 15, 2024, Cocoa was found shot and killed on Guilford College Road in Greensboro, North Carolina. She was just 26 years old.
Shannon Boswell, a 30-year-old Black transgender woman, is remembered as “one of a kind” and a “sweet soul” according to her obituary. Shannon was killed on July 2, 2024, in Atlanta. Her life was honored on July 13th, with a service filled with loved ones and friends sharing fond memories of Shannon. Shannon was someone who “loved people” and enjoyed hobbies of “watching movies and living life to the fullest.” A friend described Shannon as their “best friend” and “dear friend” who was always there when you needed her.
Pauly Likens, a 14-year-old transgender girl, was “a bright and loving individual, cherished by all who knew them,” according to a GoFundMe page. Pauly’s obituary said that she “lit up every room she entered, always making people smile and passing around her contagious laughter.” She loved music, Fortnite and Roblox.
She was last seen on June 23 at the Budd Street Public Park in Morristown, NJ. Two days later, on June 25, Pauly was reported missing. That same day, Pauly’s dismembered body was found in the Shenango River Lake, a reservoir in western Pennsylvania, as confirmed by the Mercer County Coroner’s Office and Pennsylvania State Police.
Liara Tsai, a 35-year-old white transgender woman, was found dead in a vehicle after the car crashed in Iowa on Saturday June 22nd; evidence from the scene confirms she was killed prior to the car crash. Liara, who was described by friends and loved ones as an activist and an artist, had moved to Minneapolis just 6 weeks prior to her death, in order to better pursue her career as a DJ in a city with a large trans community.
Name after name, description after description, a glimpse into who they were, a glimpse into a life snuffed out, a community bonded in grief, reaching together for strength in the face of hate and violence.
As Journee LaFond, executive director at Black Lives Matter NH said, the statistics are staggering.
The Human Rights Campaign, a national advocacy group, counted “at least thirty transgender and gender-expansive people whose lives were tragically and inhumanely taken through violent means, including gun and intimate partner violence, in 2024.” Listening to their descriptions, it was impossible to avoid that many of them – 53% according to the Human Rights Campaign – were Black transgender women. Seventy-seven percent were people of color.
“I stand at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities,” said LaFond, a Black, trans, non-binary person. “The challenges we’re facing are compounded by systemic racism, sexism and transphobia. We live in a society that actively devalues our existence and perpetuates violence against us. Now more than ever, it’s crucial to understand that these issues do not exist in isolation. They intersect and they amplify each other, and when we talk about violence against trans people, we have to also address the institutions and dangerous attitudes that exacerbate that violence.”
And it’s not just an American issue. According to Trans Gender EU’s Global Monitoring Project, 350 trans and gender diverse people were reported murdered in the past year around the world. “This is a significant increase in comparison with the previous year, when 321 cases were reported. It confirms what the trans community has been saying – transphobic violence is in no way subsiding, and on the contrary, is increasing, aided by growing anti-trans hate speech,” the group said.
Transgender Day of Remembrance began in 1999 as a vigil to honor Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was killed in Boston the year before. Local observances in Concord began more than ten years ago, sponsored by the organization now known as Equality Health Center. The events usually consisted of a walk followed by an indoor commemoration. The Covid pandemic brought on an interruption, with this year’s event the first since 2019.
The Day of Remembrance is an occasion for collective mourning, but also a collective statement of determination to live in a world where such violence no longer occurs. As Journee LaFond said, “Let’s honor those we’ve lost by committing ourselves to creating a world where all trans lives matter, where no one has to fear for their safety because of who they are or how they identify. Together, we can transform our grief into action and ensure that those legacies inspire change rather than silence.”
In addition to Equality Health Center and Black Lives Matter NH, this year’s observance was also sponsored by ACLU-NH, 603 Equality, Seacoast Outright, Reproductive Equity Now, NH Youth Movement, and the NH Queer Consortium.
“What is important to me,” said Kallum Houlker, a counselor at Equality Health Center, “is creating a space for all of us to hold each other and take care of each other at such a difficult time, and allow ourselves to grieve in a space that feels safe and understanding that’s good.”
“We’re a community of people who’ve been who are under constant threat,” said Willow Young, who transitioned six years ago. The Day of Remembrance, she said, “is something we do annually as a way to acknowledge the lives lost to hate, misunderstanding, confusion, and trying to give voice and representation to our community.”
“We hold space for each other to grieve, not because our grief defines us, but because we are beautiful, complex people who deserve the space to feel this loss, to remember those taken from us, even though it should never have happened,” Houlker said in a short speech early in the program. “The names that we honor today are not martyrs or soldiers. They did not die in a battle for a cause. They died for simply existing.” To Houlker, the Day of Remembrance is “a call to feeling, a call to sit here together and feel however we need while surrounded by our community.”
For LaFond, it’s a call to action, and not just in the realm of politics and policy. It’s also about practical assistance, like “providing food, shelter, health care, access and emotional support to those who are most vulnerable among us. These efforts are vital because they create safety where institutional systems fail us.”
Interrupted by traffic noise, the participants listened silently to the names and brief stories of thirty transgender individuals known to have lost their lives to violence in the past year. When the names were all read, Linds Jakows of 603 Equality, an advocacy group, said anti-transgender violence is “one hundred percent preventable.”
“Disrupting this horrific violence starts with disrupting anti-trans and racist comments everywhere we see them or hear them. We must also continue asking every elected official to speak up for us and not just assume they’ll continue to vote with us because they have in the past,” they said.
In their speech, Journee LaFond said, “Let’s honor those we’ve lost by committing ourselves to creating a world where all trans lives matter, where no one has to fear for their safety because of who they are or how they identify. Together, we can transform our grief into action and ensure that those legacies inspire change rather than silence.”
As participants left the plaza, Jessica Goff, the Education and Training Director at Seacoast Outright, collected electric candles and expressed gratitude that so many people had attended. The large turnout, she observed, was due to the intensified level of hostility expressed against the transgender community in what she termed “the current moment.” Bracing themselves for what comes next, she said, “I think people are really wanting community in more ways now, and so I think we’re going to continue to see more people come together at these events.”
“I wish we didn’t have to,” she continued. “I wish we could all come together around joyful events, but it’s really important to have this too.”
Kallum Houlker said the Equality Health Center will soon launch a mutual support group for transgender teens to help them boost their resiliency. In the current moment, boosted resiliency is something a lot of us will need.
