Thumbnail courtesy of Amanda Dockter.
St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Crescent City will be hosting a candlelight vigil in observance of Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) and Resilience this Wednesday, November 20th at 7pm. The event honors the memory of transgender and gender-variant individuals who have lost their lives to violence, while also focusing on cultivating community and resilience among the LGBTQIA+ population.
The event will feature several speakers from various backgrounds, including Christie Lynn Rust – a local woman who transitioned after retiring from her decades-long career as the beloved Music Director at Del Norte High School. The names of trans individuals in the United States who lost their lives in the past year will be read, with a candle lit for each of them. Unfortunately, as hate crimes often go unreported, there is no way of knowing the true number of victims lost to anti-trans violence.
Statistics about the unique challenges faced by transgender individuals paint a worrisome picture. A 2011 National Gay and Lesbian Task Force survey revealed that anti-transgender biases perpetuate discriminatory practices and attitudes towards gender-variant individuals. 63 percent of transgender respondents reported having experienced at least one form of significant discrimination, 35 percent said they were physically assaulted, and 41 percent reported attempting suicide.
Interestingly, this same data illustrates that family acceptance serves as a notable protective factor against the negative psychological impacts of anti-trans discrimination. With this in mind, local organizers have chosen to emphasize resilience as a theme for this year’s gathering.
The first Transgender Day of Remembrance was held in 1999 when advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith organized a vigil in Boston to honor the lives of Rita Hester, Chanelle Pickett, and other transgender victims of violence.
Localized efforts to observe the Transgender Day of Remembrance began five years ago at the Crescent City United Methodist Church thanks to Redwood Voice’s own Persephone Rose and Avi Critz joining forces with Thomas Kelem of the “Queer Things Radio” team.
“In 2019, Del Norte—as far as I knew—had nothing in the way of an organized queer community,” Persephone recalled.
“Your best bet as a young queer person was to leave town and find community elsewhere, as many people I knew did … November of 2019 was a highly vulnerable time in my life, and I was coming to terms with my own identity. Or, at least, coming to terms with openly being myself in a world that might kill me for it. I knew Trans Day of Remembrance was coming up. I remember reeling at the fact 24 of my sisters and siblings in the U.S. alone (that we knew of) had been killed that year. Knowing the global numbers were more in the hundreds broke me. My brother Avi and I … became fiercely determined that, if nothing else, we would honor our dead and fight like hell for the living. Even if no one else showed up—which very few did—we refused the idea of letting Del Norte forget them.”
Although the inaugural TDOR memorial failed to draw many mourners, and pandemic protocols hindered plans for a follow-up gathering, these efforts laid the groundwork to connect the local queer and gender diverse community with a network of allies. The United Methodist Church began hosting a weekly queer-friendly and gender-affirming non-denominational “Safe Space” social fellowship that same year.
“We didn’t get any interest until 2020,” Safe Space organizer and UMC lay-minister Sylas Ryan told Redwood Voice. “That first year it was just my family holding space for the church for 3 hours every Friday.”
In 2022, Thomas Kelem went on to start the DN LGBTQ Resource Project. He launched a website of educational resources, and continues to plan queer-friendly events in the community, like the annual Rainbow Pride Art Show.
In June, 2024, UMC’s Safe Space ministry and the DN LGBTQ Resource Project came together again to organize Del Norte County’s first ever LGBTQIA+ Pride Festival. This event was hosted by the Crescent City United Methodist Church after Thomas Kelem put out an open call for allied community partners, volunteers, and sponsors to help put the event together. “Wild About Pride 2024” garnered an impressive turnout.
Karen Wert, self-proclaimed “Rainbow Outreach Chairman” for St Paul’s Episcopal Church told Redwood Voice that Del Norte’s inaugural pride event was her first entry into any activities in the LGBTQ community. “Being part of that planning, and then getting our church involved in it too. We had a table at that event, so that’s where I met everybody in the community that I now know.”
One of those community colleagues was Ben Curry. Curry, who survived a conversion therapy experience during college, felt his calling towards ministry to be inseparable from and inspired by his journey to self-affirmation as a queer person. He attended seminary school in Atlanta, Georgia, and completed his chaplain residency in Fort Worth, Texas. It was there that Curry attended his first Transgender Day of Remembrance service in 2009. After moving to Sacramento in 2012, he became a regular attendee of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral’s annual TDOR services, and was even invited to be an event speaker one year. In 2023, he moved to Crescent City to begin serving as a chaplain at Sutter Coast.
“I feel incredibly lucky to have joined this community just as local LGBTQ+ leaders were coming together to plan the first ever DNATL Pride Festival,” Curry told Redwood Voice. “The existence of this event helped the community feel much more inviting and safe for my partner and me.”
Having only ever lived in larger cities, Curry recognizes that Crescent City’s small size and remoteness poses limitations on resources and explicitly queer-affirming spaces.
“For me, this is part of why activities like the TDOR event are so necessary to help foster queer wellness and fuel activism,” he said. Still, Curry believes that the region’s smaller population size is a strength in some ways.
“I’ve noticed the community has a way of filling gaps for each other and practicing a generosity of spirit I did not always experience so strongly in urban settings.”
Plans for this year’s TDOR vigil began when Ben Curry and Karen Wert started talking at a local book signing event. Curry told Wert about his experiences at TDOR services in Sacramento. The Trinity Cathedral is also an Episcopal church where the Bishop of Northern California serves.
“The Episcopal Church is one of the first churches – I think there’s maybe only the Episcopal Church, the Methodist and the Lutheran Church – that are openly accepting of everyone,” Wert told Redwood Voice.
Organizers acknowledge that many in the queer community may not feel comfortable gathering in a church. “There is an awful lot of trauma that has been caused by churches,” said Wert. “Everybody needs healing … I think it’s very important that we open it up to the community so that there can be some healing. Some people aren’t ready for it yet.”
For those who are uncomfortable in a church setting, alternative accommodations will be available including a film-screening, and a dessert reception in the social hall.
Attending events like TDOR is just one way that allies can show their support for the transgender community, Ben Curry told Redwood Voice.
“It is important for allies to cultivate relationships of cultural humility with trans people, ever listening and adjusting, to best support trans lives and communities. Out of these relationships of awareness flows the capacity to engage and dispel misinformation. Allies must use their voices in interpersonal relationships and their wider sphere of influence to speak the truths they have come to know about our trans kindred and live in solidarity. This is clearly a formidable mission in our current political climate, which is why the consistent concerted commitment of allies to personal awareness and relational education of our communities is crucial.”
For more information about trans-affirming educational resources and events, readers can visit DNLGBTQ.org.
