Friday night marked the 2009 celebration of Transgender Day of Remembrance, an international memorial to remember and honor those who have been discriminated against and killed due to anti-transgender aggression. The 11th annual Dallas vigil was held at SMU, but due to weather complications, was relocated from the flagpole to the Hughes-Trigg Student Center.

The memorial began with an a cappella song by MosaicSong, a women’s vocal ensemble dedicated to the enrichment, enlightenment and education of audiences through the performance of culturally diverse music. The ceremony was then turned over to Mike McKay, the executive director of the Resource Center of Dallas, who gave the introduction to the injustice the audience was there to defy.

“They died by the hatred and ignorance of others because they are who they are,” McKay said. “They died by people who just don’t get it.”

McKay’s introduction was followed by more singing – including the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” – and a reading of the names of people who’ve died in the past year due to hate crimes. More than one hundred names were read off, many from outside of the U.S. where conditions and attitudes toward transgenders are more hostile.

Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez took the stage as the last guest speaker of the evening.  As a lesbian, and the only female sheriff in Texas, she spoke about the importance of people standing up for their rights. Valdez used herself as an example, explaining that because she came from a poor background, she was custom to eating everything on her plate at a meal. Valdez’s state of mind was shaken when her former partner told her she wasn’t poor anymore, and she didn’t need to eat like a poor person.

“The people of the LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] community are not second class citizens,” she said to the audience.  “We are first class citizens so we need to start acting like it.”

The singing, speaking, and the ceremony as a whole, brought together more than 100 people from the Dallas community. It signified unity, support and change towards the attitudes of transgenders, but not for the SMU community.  A total of eight students were present at the ceremony, signifying that there is still more work to be done.

“It’s definitely sad and disheartening, but I wasn’t surprised,” said senior Tom Elliot, who has been advocating an LGBT seat in the student senate. “That just says that the leaders of the LGBT community need to do a better job of reaching out and getting people interested.”