Around 30 students from high schools and colleges across New York City gathered in Washington Square Park on Wednesday evening to commemorate the lives lost as a result of anti-transgender violence.
Members of New York City Youth for Trans Rights, who organized the vigil to observe the Transgender Day of Remembrance, lit candles and recited poetry about bodily autonomy and self-love. They also read the names of trans people and prominent trans activists who were murdered this year, and concluded with a two-minute moment of silence. Speakers shared personal experiences with transphobia and gender discrimination in their daily lives and urged vigil attendees to continue to organize in support of trans rights.
In a series of speeches, students expressed concerns about President-elect Donald Trump’s potential transphobic and anti-LGBTQ+ policies when he takes office in January. Throughout his political career and presidential campaign, Trump has repeatedly made public anti-trans remarks, condemning the presence of trans women in sports and calling for the removal of “transgender insanity” in U.S. schools.
City College of New York student Raven Benjamin, one of the vigil’s organizers, said that as someone in an interracial relationship, they are concerned that a second Trump term could threaten them and their girlfriend’s safety.
“We don’t know how long we have left to get married, to have children, to be able to walk around freely holding hands, to have her be my girlfriend — not only in private, but in public,” Benjamin said. “It’s scary on a bigger scale, and uncertainty kind of creates panic.”
Kal, a high school student and another organizer, echoed Benjamin’s fears and said the rise of anti-trans sentiments in the United States since Trump’s victory has heightened the stakes at this year’s vigil. Kal said they plan to attend trade school after graduation to become an electrician, but are concerned they will not find a queer community at a school where they “might be in danger.”
At the vigil, a man seated at a nearby bench interrupted one of the speakers, repeatedly yelling at them to “shut the fuck up.” The speaker continued their speech and, after a few minutes of disruption, the man stopped.
The evening prior, seven members of NYU’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society also held a vigil honoring trans lives at the Tandon School of Engineering. At the vigil, which lasted around 15 minutes, participants gave speeches and chanted “Not the church, not the state, trans people decide their fate” and “Racist, sexist, anti-gay, Donald Trump go away.”
Two police officers and two Campus Safety officers observed the group from about 20 feet away, while two security marshals stood next to the demonstrators. One organizer read a statement on behalf of NYU’s Native American and Indigenous Students Group, noting intersections of Indigenous and queer rights and criticizing Trump’s policies that threaten Indigenous lands.
Tandon first-year Bella Gutierrez, an SDS organizer and Navajo Native American, recounted a deity in the history of her tribe whose name represents a “changing woman” and demonstrates how some people are made up of two beings. Growing up, Gutierrez learned that these people — regardless of their identity — have a right to exist.
“People who are of this being — like two-spirit, the other gender or nonbinary — that they’re sacred beings,” Gutierrez said in an interview with WSN. “We need to hold them to that and not put them down, not have this Western thought and be like, ‘Oh, you can’t be two things at once.’”
Contact Mariapaula Gonzalez at [email protected].
