For Immediate Release:
From: The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC)
Contacts: Media Director, Robyn Walters, Seattle, Washington
NTAC Chair, Vanessa Edwards Foster, Houston, Texas
Contact Email: ntacmedia@aol.com or media@ntac.org
Contact Phone: 832-483-9901, 360-434-3042
Website: http://www.ntac.org

In Memoriam: NTAC Joins Others in Remembering Our Dead

The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition will black out its website www.ntac.org on Saturday, November 20, 2004 in observance of the Sixth Annual Day of Remembrance. This day is set aside to pay homage to those who have been murdered in crimes of bigotry or hatred against the transgendered. The sites of many GLBT organizations will be blacked out in honor of those who died.

In the past year, 21 transgender murders have been reported around the world. Twelve occurred in the United States and Puerto Rico, continuing the pace of one or more murders per month. An unknown number of other transgender murders go unreported around the world.

The Remembering Our Dead website www.rememberingourdead.org lists known murder victims from as far back as 1970. The list currently holds 325 names, with the latest entry being an unknown transsexual found brutally beaten to death on November 6th in a Long Beach, CA alleyway. By next month the list will likely hold one or two more.

The Republican leadership in the US House of Representatives again blocked passage of Senate-approved Hate Crimes legislation this year that would have included both sexual orientation and perceived gender, signaling that transgender, intersex, gay, and lesbian lives don’t count.

Remembering Our Dead memorial services will be held in major cities and small towns across the United States and around the world. To find an event near you, check www.gender.org/remember/day/where.html.

Founded in 1999, NTAC - the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition - is a §501(c)(4) civil rights organization working to establish and maintain the right of all transgendered, intersexed, and gender-variant people to live and work without fear of violence or discrimination.