The Trans Day of Resistance was marked in Newtown on November 20 with speakers addressing the ongoing struggle for rights by trans and gender diverse people. It was organised by Pride in Protest.
Speakers addressed the federal government’s religious discrimination bill, that could be tabled in the next two weeks, the decriminalisation of sex work and the decriminalisation of drugs. The bill aims to entrench the right to discriminate into law — on the grounds of religious freedom — in ways currently illegal under the Anti-Discrimination Act.
The Transgender Day of Remembrance began in the United States on November 20, 1999 to honour the memory of Rita Hester — a transgender woman of colour who was stabbed 20 times in her Boston apartment in the United States in 1998.
While there has been some progress over the last 20 years, little has changed for most transgender people who are forced to live on the fringes. As if to highlight that fact, the small protest was very heavily policed, including with police on horses.