The event is held in November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 inspired the Remembering Our Dead web project and a candlelight vigil.

Unfortunately, another trans person was murdered just this week for being trans and gay, Teish Cannon of Syracuse, New York.

Others being remembered this year as part of Transgender Day of Remembrance include Lawrence King of Oxnard, Calif., a 15-year-old boy who liked to wear women’s clothes and was shot in the head by a fellow classmate; Simmie Williams Jr., 17, shot in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. wearing women’s clothes; and Angie Zapata, 18, of Greeley, Colo., brutally murdered by a 31-year-old man who became enraged when he learned that she was a biological male.

Locally, MCC Anchorage held a Transgendered Day candle lighting service last Sunday.

Richard LaFortune, a Native Alaskan member of the Yup’ik tribe, spoke yesterday at Washington State University about ‘two-spirit people,’ American Indians with both a male and female spirit. LaFortune helped organize the International Two Spirit Gathering, an annual gathering of LGBT Native people that occurs in late August.