While employment rights are very important, the more fundamental right to be alive is something that transgender people cannot take for granted. The official Google blog, which normally tackles topics such as the latest software, today posted on the topic of today's Transgender Day of Remembrance, which commemorates the heightened violence experienced by transgender people around the world. I find this particularly touching in a business setting. While many businesses today are willing to pay tribute to sexual diversity to some extent, few are willing to commemorate a day that asks us to remember that people are dying because they are transgender. It's not pretty, and it doesn't sell software. Good for you, Google. Official Google Blog: Transgender Remembrance Day
The Transgender Day of Remembrance is held in November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder in 1998 kicked off the “Remembering Our Dead” web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999. Since then, the event has grown to encompass memorials in dozens of cities across the world. For a video tribute to Rita Hester and footage from the Rita Hester vigil in 1998, see the touching video posted by Ethan St. Pierre.
