Black Trans Women Can’t Wait!

3 min readNov 20, 2020

TDOR 2020

Image of 2 Black transgender women with turquoise background text that reads [remember trans power, fight for trans lives] — Source Jacobs, Ethan. “Remembering Rita Hester.” *EDGE Media Network*. November 15, 2008. Web.

Earlier today Black Trans Media reminded us of the origin of TDoR, created to honor Rita Hester, a Black Trans Woman who was killed days before her 35th birthday.

screenshot of tweet from Black trans media naming the origin of TDOR — Tweet from Black Trans Media

Our team honors those that are here and those we have lost by remaining committied to investing in Black trans leadership and supporting efforts to secure Black trans power, ownership, and self determination. In this fight for freedom TGIJP is planting the seeds to build for our future. You can honor TGI people today by joining Black and Pink’s PenPal Program, and their Holiday Card Campaign. You can also commit to continuously doing the following three things:

Give money & other resources directly to Black TGI people.
Materially support Black TGI led collectives, projects, and orgs.
Disrupting structures that contribute to violence TGI people face.

multiple images in frames of Black transgender people — Images displayed at TGIJP Office

Our Executive Director, Janetta Johnson has a beautiful vision to evolve TGIJP into a community and cultural center that is Black trans owned. Janetta’s vision for the upcoming future of TGIJP is to overcome the organization’s tribulations of maintaining a secure building to do our work and contribute to building a more sustainable future for TGI people that are present. The community and cultural center Janetta envisions will generate income for formerly incarcerated TGI people outside of the prison industrial complex, provide space for community engagement in Popular/Political Education, celebrate Black trans arts/culture, community organizing, and many more community based efforts to build Black trans power.

4 images of Black transgender people and art dispalyed in frames hung on a white wall. — Images honoring Black TGI people in TGIJP Office

The TGI people we’ve lost have contributed to shaping our communities and have great influence as long as we, the living, remember and honor them. How well and faithfully do you honor them?