Vancouver's transgender community celebrates week of awareness and advocacy

This week, the transgender community in Vancouver will be celebrating and memorializingvictims of transphobic violence duringthe internationalweek of awareness leading up to the Transgender Day of Remembrance Nov. 20.

B.C. is ahead of the curve when it comes to transgender rights, and education on inclusion in schools is improving levels of acceptance, said Morgane Oger, the chair of the Trans Alliance Society.

"There's an active effort in schools by educators to include diversity in the education," she told The Early Edition's Stephen Quinn.

Oger said the addition of the SOGI 123 initiative, which requires all schools to include sexual orientation and gender identity into their anti-bullying policies, has been successful in exposing children to "the diversity of the universe they live in."

"For example, rather than always talking about "Billie" and "Suzie"... and they have a mom and a dad, now we talk about maybe sometimes they have two moms and one of the parents might be trans."

The province recently took another step in acknowledging people who identify as non-binary meaning they subscribe to neither male or female genders by offering the option of marking an 'X' in the gender field on primary ID, which Oger said is a "major win" for the community.

She said while B.C. continues to progress in human rights for transgender, non-binary and other LGBTpeople, this week is about recognizing instances where the community's rights are regressing.

"We're very mindful here about what's happening in the U.S.," Oger said, referencing the recent memo from theTrump administration announcing a plan to establish a legal definition of sex under federal civil rights law.

"Donald Trump's government is trying to basically erase transgendered people by taking us out of the definition of what people are."

The week of cultural activities and activism ends with the Trans Day of Remembrance on Nov 20, where people will march and acknowledge the trans people who lost their lives in the past year by reading their names aloud.

Oger said the best way to show support for the LGBTcommunity is to show empathy and allow transgender people to tell their own story.

"Listen and let the people whose issues are affected lead ... A very good ally translates to a point but really spends a lot of time listening to the people they're trying to be allies to."

With files from The Early Edition

To hear the full interview listen to media below: