I wear a pendant. The star of Inanna. A gift from one of my chosen sisters.

I wear this pendant for many reasons, but one is a matter of recognition. Recognition for my trans siblings and ascendents throughout history and also today. It's a matter of recognizing that I'm here and able to exist in spite of the millennia of violence endured by my siblings. Millennia of forces working to smear us from existence or even memory. I recognize the sacrifices that have been made for their own existence as well as for mine.

And every year, we set aside a day. Many of us work, we run our errands, we cook our meals, we spend the day as usual for the most part. Some of us may attend a vigil if there's one around.

But as we go about this day, Trans Day of Remembrance, we remember the weight of the previous year, and at times, the weight of our collective history.

The weight is suffocating at times.

We spend the day with one collective thought on our mind.

We mourn the murder of our siblings.

We mourn the violence they endured. We mourn all of our siblings murdered over the previous year, because every single year, our siblings are murdered simply for existing. We acknowledge that while murder happens to all demographics of trans people, trans people of color are much more likely to be murdered than white trans people.

And we mourn all trans people who have died as a result of the violence they have had to endure, which means we mourn those who took their own lives because the pain and violence forced upon them by society was too painful to endure.

There is no place in this world which doesn't govern, control, and gatekeep the basis of our existence and which allows us a full measure of our own self-determination and right to exist on our own terms.

Not a single place.

We live in a world that holds no safe place for any trans people, and the world is increasingly encouraging, legitimizing, and codifying violence against us into law. We live in the context of our own millennia-long genocide, but we are living in a time in which the world is increasingly committed to focusing on this goal.

There is no safe place.

Tighter the walls seem to be, day by day.

And we feel it. We support each other through it.

But this weight is unbearable for many of us. Many of us are without support. Many of us are targeted more than others. Many of us have so much more to endure than others, but we all endure much.

And so many of us do not survive. So many who never even had the chance to come out, to be themselves, because death was a simpler alternative than existence. Such is the nature of violence we endure.

I almost didn't survive long enough to come out, either.

Others take their existence for granted. We have to fight for it. Every inch. Tooth and claw.

Because even for those who take their own lives, before or after transition, make no mistake, it was the violence that killed them. It was the pain of the world that refused to allow them the space to exist.

Since I came out, I haven't known a year without having some sort of connection to someone who is lost, and I haven't known a year where I haven't feared of losing someone I know.

The weight is stifling.

The weight is suffocating.

Every trans suicide is murder.

Every person who felt that it would be better to die than experience the pain that society, their governments, communities, families have and would continue to dole out on them... every one of these is a murder.

If I hadn't had the opportunity to exist, I wouldn't have survived, either.

Their pain is our collective pain. We experience it in different ways, in different degrees, and in our own ways, but the violence against each is violence we feel against all of us.

And so for today, we feel the pain, as often happens, far too often and far too much.

And we mourn for those who have been taken from us.

Far too often.

Far too much.

I'll light another candle this year. I'll speak in my heart emotions without words and words that can't be vocalized.

I remember them.

And I'll wear my pendant tomorrow, too. I often wear it. There is joy and love in this pendant, too, not just pain. Our pain is not what defines us, but the beauty of who we are that defines us. And I'll find joy in my days and in my life.

And I suppose that's the whole point. The people around us don't even know the beauty of what we've lost. A dead trans person is not often mourned by many, or even noted, and seldom remembered. They are discarded and forgotten.

But today we will remember all that this world has stolen from us, which is all we've ever had– each other.

no ends, only means