Salford Pride is hosting an online vigil commemorating the transgender lives lost due to hate-crime, violence, and suicide, with transgender artists and collaborators sharing their own stories and pieces.
This Saturday marks the day to remember transgender lives, and Salford Pride hopes to use this year to amplify their voices, giving a name to every victim while teaching of the reality transgender people have to face every day.
Alfin Austin, 28, Head of Design and Marketing in Salford Pride, said: “It’s going to be like a moment of silence, and then we’ll say their names. Because, it is very easy for people to say ‘oh trans day of remembrance, trans people get murdered’ and really not realise that it is real people.
“We really want to have as many names (that are public) on, which are going to be put on the livestream, they are going to be on the screen and the idea is that people will take note on the real people this is affecting.”
As part of the livestream, transgender artists Quenby, Husk and many others, were encourage to submit pieces of art which gave a message they wanted to spread to local audiences.
Alfin said: “By celebrating some of the art that people are doing, it is a very good way for us to show that trans people have something to offer to the world and we come to their respect.”
Quenby, 25, is a transgender artist who does poetry, comedy, drag and other performing arts, their piece will tackle the transphobic stereotypes in day-to-day life.
They said: “There’s an expectation of how we perform our pain as trans people… I talked about that vulnerability of exposing yourself in a wider world which is not trans-inclusive.
“It was kind of my reflection on how we share our stories, how we present that, and the idea that TDoR (Trans day of Remembrance) is a very private thing, is about personal grief, is very much about the trans community specifically coming together.”
Explaining how emotions came into the piece they said: “I am trying to show more of the anger than the pain I feel around it. Anger is such a common feeling around trans people… we often have to suppress it on one way or another.
I’m trying to convey emotion, I’m trying to show to someone who may not have my experiences what is like to feel these things… and that’s where change and progress comes across.”
Connor James, 22, is the Head of Events for Salford Pride, and when being asked why the vigil is online he said: “Doing things online we are able to connect to a wider range of people.”
“People are able to get more involved in our event when they wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise, so being able to connect to global activists, local activists, and having a diverse range of people coming on to share their stories and, overall the most important thing, pay their respects.”
Salford Pride will host the event in their Facebook page this Saturday at 6pm.
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