Trans Day of Remembrance 2025 Speech

We gather this night in the long shadow of grief, for the candles we light are not mere symbols; they are sentinels. Each flame represents a name, a life, a story cut short not by fate, but by hatred. Their light flickers against the darkness of a world still too willing to forget us, too quick to legislate us out of existence, too eager to erase us from its vision of humanity.

We stand at a moment in history when to be transgender, to live openly and unafraid, is to live as both witness and warrior. Across this nation, laws are being written to deny our children the right to learn their own names, to silence our doctors, to close the doors of our restrooms, to strip us of the dignity that God endowed upon us. The machinery of cruelty turns, and the architects of fear have found new blueprints in the old bones of bigotry. These are not merely commentary and policies, they are proclamations of fear. They are attempts to return us to closets, to shame, to silence.

Yet here we stand.

We stand not as victims, but as witnesses to our own endurance. We stand as living monuments to those who came before us, those who carried the torch when the night was darker still. Our forebears of spirit—those who walked in stealth, those who lived in exile, those who dared to live openly when the cost was everything—walk beside us still.

There is a storm upon the land, yes. But we have weathered storms before. We are an ancient people, older than the laws that would confine us, older than the hate that seeks to define us. Our existence is not a recent act of rebellion; it is a continuation of creation itself.

And though the hour seems dark, remember: darkness is not the enemy of light. It is its cradle. From the depths of despair, the dawn has always risen. And rise we shall again.

Let our grief be noble. Let our anger be righteous. Let our hope be defiant.

We shall remember the dead not with quiet resignation, but with solemn promise—that their names will not fade into the mist. We will speak for them, honor them, fight for them. We will live as they longed to live: free, unafraid, and whole.

And when those who seek to erase us look upon this gathering, may they see not sorrow, but strength. May they see that though they strike at us, we endure. Though they pass laws against us, we thrive. Though they raise their voices in hatred, ours rise higher still.

For we are not a people meant for hiding. We are a people meant for beholding.

So tonight, lift your candles high. Let their flames mirror the fire within you: the quiet, unyielding truth that we are still here. That we are still becoming. That we are still sacred.

May the light we kindle tonight outlast the night itself. And may the world, at last, learn to see us not as broken, but as brilliant.

Thank you.