This is Rita Hester. Rita was born in 1963, in Hartford, Connecticut. She loved rock music, food, and dancing. She often holidayed in Greece. She had a pet cat, and a boa constrictor.
In 1998, Rita was murdered. In 1999, Transgender Day of Remembrance was founded in her honour.
Today we mark Transgender Day of Remembrance and remember Rita, and everyone else who has been murdered because of transphobic violence.
I know it’s early in the year, but in my junior year of college, I went through this site, found the people who had died in our area (and included Rita Hester), compiled their photos, age at death, bios, and info for the vigil, and printed posters of them and put them up on the day.
Nobody took them down. But I watched people barely even notice them. The following year, I made them more eye-catching - paid for color printing, made the background pastel pink and blue, formatted them like lost posters, and at the top, wrote: "will you remember me?"
That got noticed.
So if anyone feels like me when the anniversary comes - like our deaths aren’t being noticed, like nobody cares, like nobody even knows - maybe this can inspire you to put up your own posters, and hold your own vigil. Or let this inspire you to do your own project.
