CARNAL NATION

Today is the Eleventh International Transgender Day of Remembrance, which commemorates the deaths of the people who were killed because they were transgender or perceived as such.

What do you say about a day devoted to remembering the people who have been murdered because they didn't accept their biological gender? I've been thinking that for the past couple of hours as I try to get this article started, and words keep failing me. There are 119 deaths being remembered this year. They include Andrea Waddell, who was strangled in a flat in Brighton, England; Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado, a 19-year-old who was decapitated and dismembered in Cayey, Puerto Rico; Taysia Elzy, who was shot to death along with her boyfriend, Michael Hunt, in their Indianapolis apartment; and many more, often unnamed. A full list is available on the Day of Rembrance website. Memorial events across the world are also listed on the home page.

It's hard to know what to say beyond that. This year also saw the conviction of Allen Ray Andrade, who murdered 19-year-old transwoman Angie Zapata by beating her to death with a fire extinguisher. One of the most memorable details of the case was Andrade's statement to the police afterward: "I thought I killed it," he said. Andrade could no doubt be speaking for many of the killers who put names onto the list. By making this list, the activists behind the Day of Remembrance refuse to allow any of those almost 120 people to become "it," even in death. It's a solemn thing to run your eye down those names and think about what could have been. Today at CarnalNation, we are thinking about the dead and their loved ones, and hoping that future lists will be much, much shorter.