A message from Dr. Shawn V. Giammattei, Founder & Director, TransFamily Alliance
Every November 20th, our community pauses. We say names. We light candles. We grieve people we never had the chance to meet — and we hold a little tighter to the young people in our own lives who share something essential with them: the simple, sacred fact of being who they are.
Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) began in 1999 to honor Rita Hester and the transgender people whose lives were taken by violence. More than 25 years later, it remains both a memorial and a call to action — a day to mourn what has been lost, and to recommit to the safety, dignity, and future of transgender people everywhere, including the child sitting at your dinner table tonight.
I know this day can feel complicated for parents. You may feel grief for people you never knew. You may feel a surge of protective fear for your own child. You may feel anger, helplessness, or a need to do something — anything — with all of that feeling. All of it belongs here. None of it needs to be resolved by tomorrow.
Why This Day Matters for Our Parent Community
TDOR isn’t only about statistics, though the statistics are real and they matter. It’s about naming individual lives — people who had families, laughed at inside jokes, had favorite songs, and were loved. When we say their names, we refuse to let them be reduced to a headline or a hashtag.
For parents of transgender and gender-diverse youth, TDOR can also be a mirror. It’s a day that asks: What kind of world am I building for my child? Not out of guilt or panic, but out of love in motion. Every affirming conversation you have, every school meeting you show up to, every time you use your child’s correct name and pronouns without hesitation — these are not small things. They are the daily architecture of safety.
Where This Fits in Your Gender Journey
Wherever you are on your own path — whether you’re newly navigating a disclosure, or years into confident advocacy — TDOR offers a moment to reconnect with why this work matters. Grief and hope are not opposites. They can, and often do, live in the same breath. Many parents find that acknowledging the hard realities transgender people face doesn’t diminish their hope for their own child’s future — it deepens their resolve to help build a safer one.
Ways to Mark TDOR With Your Family
You don’t need a perfect script or a big gesture. Consider:
- Light a candle together, and if your child is willing, ask if there’s anything they want to say or feel on this day. Follow their lead on how much they want to engage.
- Learn a name or a story from this year’s list of those we’ve lost, and hold it with the same seriousness you’d hold a memory of someone close to you.
- Talk about safety in concrete terms — not to frighten your child, but to reaffirm the systems of support around them: you, your family, their school, their community.
- Rest. If this day brings up heaviness for you, it’s okay to tend to that too. Caregiver grief is real, and it doesn’t compete with your child’s experience — it exists alongside it.
You Are Not Alone in This
This is exactly the kind of day the TransFamily Alliance community exists for — so that no parent has to hold this weight in isolation. If you’re looking for connection, our community spaces and upcoming events are here for you, and our group coaching program, Navigating the Gender Journey, and private coaching offers structured support for exactly these moments when love and fear sit side by side.
Tonight, when you tuck your child in or say goodnight, know this: your steady presence is part of what changes the story. Every parent who shows up with love instead of fear is quietly rewriting what safety looks like for the next generation.
We remember those we’ve lost. We recommit to those still here.
With you on the journey,
Dr. Shawn V. Giammattei
Founder & Director, TransFamily Alliance
If you or your family are struggling, please know that support is available through the TFA community and our coaching programs. You don’t have to carry this alone.