Sask transgender community marks Day of Remembrance

"Coco, age 48, on the 8th of March 2014 in Edmonton. Coco was a well-known drag queen."

Miki Mappin reads out a list of 226 names from around the world, of transgender people murdered in the past year. It's compiled, Mappin said, by Transgender Europe's Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide research project TEA, and available on-line.

November 20 is Transgender Day of Remembrance, and simultaneous vigils were also taking place in Regina and Moose Jaw.

Mappin read the names in front of a gathering of about two dozen people, who turned up for a vigil of remembrance last night at the University of Saskatchewan.

Some were visibly upset, including Elise Pallagi.

"People in this room knew some of these people who've died," Pallagi said.

Victims in Regina, Prince Albert

Mappin said there are murder cases in Saskatchewan the transgender community here knows about, that did not make it onto the list of 226 because the victim was not identified as transgender -- one of them in Regina last year on Halloween.

"One of the people from Prince Albert I was just talking to, the young woman I was just talking to, she tells me that she knows of several cases from Prince Albert that should be on that list," Mappin went on. "But because of reporting, or because of the families not wanting to associate the name of the deceased with their being transgender that doesn't get reported."

Mappin co-chairs TransSask Support Services Inc, and is director of the Gender Equality Society of Saskatchewan.

Assaults, discrimination

While murder is the most extreme form of targetting, Mappin said transgender people in Saskatchewan also face non-lethal attacks, sexual assaults, discrimination and bullying. It can mean losing one's home or job.

During the evening's program, Maaya Hitomi read out some numbers from a recent survey of transgender people in Ontario:
13 per cent reported being fired after coming out as transgender
they experienced joblessness at a rate four times that of the general population, despite having a higher level of education on average

"With statistics like this it's no surprise that many transgender people turn to sex work as a means for survival," Hitomi said.

Vigils like the ones last night are part of the effort to change societal attitudes.

Mappin and others in the transgender community are also lobbying the provincial government to amend the Saskatchewan Human Rights code, to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression.