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Observing Transgender Day of Remembrance

November 20, 2021

Mickey Harmon and Ari Moore’s Stonewall Nation: WNY LGBT History Mural, 2020, on Q Bar at 44 Allen Street. Photo: Brenda Bieger for Buffalo AKG Art Museum

On the occasion of Transgender Day of Remembrance, we are sharing the words of artist and archivist Ari Moore and community health specialist Shateer "Tee" Douglas:

1. Transgender Day of Remembrance is a significant annual event that was set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice.

2. For the last 20+ years, transgender individuals have been observing Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20 in honor of Rita Hester and the many other lives lost. 

3. We the living must commit to ending the abuse, discrimination, and murder of transgender and gender non-conforming persons. The transphobia, classism, sexism, discrimination, and violence must stop.

4. We work, we walk, and we live among you in all levels of society. We are all different colors, ethnicities, and creeds.

5. Transgender media representation can serve as a platform for inclusion and positive representation.

We invite you to check out Ari Moore and Mickey Harmon's Stonewall Nation: WNY LGBT History Mural, which recognizes the historic and ongoing struggle of LGBTQ+ activists through portraits of key local and national figures in this history from its beginnings at New York’s Stonewall Inn to the present. 

We also invite you to explore Difference Machines: Technology and Identity in Contemporary Art, which features the work of Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, whose practice records the lives of Black Trans people, and Rian Ciela Hammond, who creates media-expansive artworks that invite people to examine the interactions between technology, power, and ways of knowing and being a body. 

Installation view of Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’s WE ARE HERE BECAUSE OF THOSE THAT ARE NOT, 2020, in the special exhibition Difference Machines: Technology and Identity in Contemporary Art at Albright-Knox Northland. Photo: Brenda Bieger.

Installation view of Rian Ciela Hammond’s Root Picker, 2021, in the special exhibition Difference Machines: Technology and Identity in Contemporary Art at Albright-Knox Northland. Photo: Brenda Bieger.