(NewsNation) — Leading up to Transgender Day of Remembrance Nov. 20, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) released a report documenting the at least 32 transgender and gender-nonconforming people who had been killed in 2022 thus far.
The study, titled An Epidemic of Violence: Fatal Violence Against Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People in the United States in 2022, is the latest in what has been an ongoing series on the violence against transgender people the organization has been documenting since 2012.
Additionally, the study is part of HRC’s initiative for Transgender Awareness Week, which was commemorated Nov. 14-19.
HRC reported at least 300 violent deaths of transgender and gender-nonconforming people in the past decade.
Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for HRC’s Transgender Justice Initiative, explained that Transgender Day of Remembrance is a tradition meant for transgender and nonbinary individuals to come together and mourn for the lost.
“Ten years and over three hundred deaths that we know of is a grim milestone,” Cooper said in an online statement.
But Cooper also stressed that the day is equally devoted to hoping for a better future, calling on both transgender persons and allies to “respond” to the tragedies of the past decade by “advocating anywhere and everywhere.”
“We will honor their lives and their memories with action,” Cooper said.
Similarly, Shoshana Goldberg, director of public education & research for the HRC, spoke specifically to the lives that were lost.
“Each and every one of the at least 300 people killed since 2013 was a person with a full, rich life that did not deserve to be cut short,” Goldberg said.
HRC’s profiling of each of them makes the point poignantly.
From Kimbella Kimble, a 21-year-old Black trans woman who died just 24 hours after being placed in solitary confinement, to Duval Princess, a 24-year-old popular hairstylist from Jacksonville, Florida, who specialized in wigs and weaves and who was shot to death in January, all were beloved by their communities.
Goldberg, however, kept focus on the mission ahead and gave words of encouragement for the work left to do.
“We will fight for change. We must dismantle this stigma. Together, we can bring this epidemic of violence to an end,” Goldberg said.