Dozens gathered at the Minnesota State Capitol on Thursday during Transgender Day of Remembrance, honoring people lost to anti-transgender violence and calling for action.

Transgender Day of Remembrance began in 1999 as a vigil to honor the memories of Rita Hester and Chanelle Pickett, two Black transgender women murdered in acts of anti-transgender violence. As legislation at both state and federal levels across the country that limits transgender rights is rising, many speakers stressed the importance of advocacy. 

Zoë Muellerleile, vice chair of MNclusive, a LGBTQIA+ employee resource group who hosted the event, said the day is about both mourning and finding courage.

“Mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living,” Muellerleile said. “Transgender Day of Remembrance calls us to do both.”

Transgender people are more than four times as likely as cisgender people to be victims of violent crime. 

More than half of transgender people who die due to violence are people of color, with Black trans women representing the majority, said Minnesota Rep. Leigh Finke (DFL-St. Paul), the first transgender person to serve in the state legislature.

Finke spoke of transgender lives lost, such as Savannah Williams, a Cuban and Native transgender woman, who was killed in Minneapolis in 2023. As well as Sam Nordquist, an Indigenous and Black transgender man from Red Wing, Minnesota, who was murdered in New York in February. 

Minnesota has the largest number of adults who identify as transgender, according to a report from the UCLA School of Law Williams Institute. Minnesota passed a law that established Minnesota as a trans refuge state, which banned out-of-state laws from interfering in gender-affirming health care. Minnesota also banned conversion therapy and the legislature created the Council on LGBTQIA2S+ Minnesotans in 2023. 

Finke said she is grateful for the work Minnesota has done to protect transgender people, but issues of safety still persist.

“We take a lot of responsibility for the laws that we passed,” Finke said. “We have told people, ‘Come to Minnesota, we will protect you.’ We have to make good on that promise.”

On Trump’s first day in office of his second term, he signed an executive order that states there are only two federally recognized genders, male and female, and directed departments to strip anything that strayed from those definitions.

​​Following that order, the administration removed public health objectives aimed at reducing bullying and suicidal thoughts among transgender youth, said Christa Moseng, a judge with the Minnesota Court of Administrative Hearings. After a court injunction, the administration reinstated the objectives but disclaimed the information.

“This created an absurd spectacle of a government arguing with itself about the public health merits of reducing bullying and suicidal ideation,” Moseng said.

About 40% of transgender students or students questioning whether they are transgender report being bullied at school, according to 2023 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. States that have passed anti-trans laws have also seen increases in suicide attempts among transgender youth, according to the National Library of Medicine.

Finke said transgender people continue to live authentically and show optimism.

“There are young trans people and old trans people who are coming up, who are transitioning, who are saying in the face of government eradication and violence and death and rejection, ‘I’m trans, and I am going to transition,’” Finke said.

Theo Casio, chair of the Council on LGBTQIA2S+ Minnesotans, said anti-transgender rhetoric nationwide is both violent and calculated.

“We must name the harm, not just the physical violence, but the legislative violence, the rhetorical violence, the cultural violence,” Casio said. “The kind that shows up in school boards, in courtrooms, in newsrooms and in dinner table conversations.”

Casio said support must go beyond symbolism and be sustained.

“To my trans and two-spirit relatives, you are sacred,” Casio said. “You are powerful, and you deserve to live without fear. Whether you are out or not, visible or not, your existence is valid. Your joy is revolutionary, and your survival is resistance.”