Transgender Day of Visibility

Transgender Day of Visibility is an annual awareness day celebrated around the world. The day is dedicated to celebrating the accomplishments of transgender, gender-nonconforming, and non-binary people and raising awareness of the work that still needs to be done to achieve transgender justice.

How to observe Transgender Day of Visibility — Start with pronouns

What can you do to show support? Start with learning the right way to use pronouns. People almost always mean well, but the misgendering and mispronouncing — using words or personal gender pronouns that do not reflect how someone identifies — can hurt.

When someone tells you that their personal pronouns are “they/them,” they are trusting you with a piece of themselves. We need to train ourselves not to assume anyone’s gender, and to respect personal gender pronouns people use for themselves. This work involves learning that one’s gender presentation or expression is not always the same as their gender identity.

About Transgender Day of Visibility

Rachel Crandall, a U.S.-based transgender activist, founded this day in 2009 to raise awareness for the incredible burden of discrimination the community faces in every setting imaginable. The need to bring “visibility” to the transgender community is indicative of the oppression they face in many sectors.

Crandall wanted to highlight the fact that the only transgender-centric day that is internationally recognized is Transgender Day of Remembrance, which is in mourning of members of the community who had lost their lives, and that there was no day to pay homage to living transgender people. By 2014, the day was observed by activists in Ireland and Scotland while, in 2015, many transgender people took part in the event by participating in social media campaigns.