Trans Awareness Week runs from 13 November to 19 November and leads up to Trans Day of Remembrance on 20 November.
Trans Awareness Week is a space to celebrate trans resilience and pride. It educates allies on important trans related topics and ensures that the voices of trans people are prioritised and heard. While these are things that should be happening all year round, it is especially important for this week as it is leading up to Trans Day of Remembrance.
Trans Day of Remembrance is an annual event that memorialises victims of transphobic violence, particularly those who have been killed as a result of transphobia.
What can you and your organisation or community this Trans Awareness Week?
Share and amplify
- Share stories of trans resilience and trans celebration that are written about trans people, by trans people.
- Amplify the voices of trans people and ensure that they are the centre of their own stories.
- Ensure that the stories you are sharing represent the extremely diverse range of experiences that trans people have.
Celebrate diversity
- Help celebrate the diversity and not contribute to the myth that every trans person has the same needs, desires and dreams.
Educate yourself
- Continue to educate yourself on what it means to affirm and celebrate the trans people in your lives and communities. How can you be a better ally to trans people?
- Make an effort to expand your own knowledge and educate yourself, rather than expecting trans people to do it for you. It is unfair and can be draining for trans people to be expected to educate many of the people in their lives. Being an ally to trans people is more than just learning how to use the right pronouns, or what processes are involved in gender affirmation. There are vast libraries of information that you can discover for yourself as an ally.
Support
- Support the trans people in your lives and communities. A week of hyper-visibility culminating on a day of memorial can be intense and overwhelming. The needs of individual trans people may be vastly different – ask your trans friends and loved ones if they are OK and what you can do to support them.
- Give trans people space if they need it. Sometimes trans people may need the time to be around other members of their communities to remember and to mourn.
Challenge transphobia
- Do not provide a platform for transphobic, bigoted, or discriminatory statements and commentary.
- A lot of attention is given to transphobic statements and comments because of their controversial nature. And it can end up having an impact on the mental health and wellbeing of the trans people who read them.
- Challenge transphobia, bigotry, and discrimination, just don’t let that be the only thing you openly talk about.
Create positive space
- One of the most helpful things that you can do as an ally is to ensure that you cultivate a space that is positive and affirming. Celebrating trans people and their resilience and strength is far more beneficial than statements that bring attention to transphobic people.
You can do these things every day of the year. Just because Trans Awareness Week is a publicised event, doesn’t mean that you only need to do these things for a single week. The educational resources that are highlighted during this time are available all year around and being an ally to trans people is something that you have to make an effort to do all of the time. Trans people are trans all of the time too.
If you are trans or gender diverse and want to talk to someone about getting safe, gender-affirming health and wellbeing support, book an appointment at our Trans and Gender Diverse Health Clinic.
Photo credit: ABC News, Darryl Torpy.