In recognition of Transgender Awareness Month, the City of West Hollywood is co-sponsoring The TransLatin@ Coalition’s GARRAS Fashion Show 2023, taking place TONIGHT, Saturday, November 18, 2023 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Pacific Design Center, located at 8687 Melrose Avenue. Tickets for the TransLatin@ Coalition’s GARRAS fashion show can be purchased at https://garras.org.
The TransLatin@ Coalition is a nonprofit organization that advocates for the specific needs of the TransLatin@ community that reside in the United States.
GARRAS Fashion Show is an annual fundraising event to support the life-saving supportive services that The TransLatin@ Coalition provides in Los Angeles through the Center for Violence Prevention & Transgender Wellness.
GARRAS stands for Groundbreaking Activism Redirecting & Reforming All Systems.
Founded in 2009, The TransLatin@ Coalition (TLC) is a nationwide, trans-led nonprofit organization advocating for the specific needs of the Trans Latin@ community in the United States. Through our center in Los Angeles, we offer direct services to Trans, Gender Nonconforming, and Intersex (TGI) people and provide comprehensive guidance toward resources that will improve the quality of life of TGI people.
The City of West Hollywood is also hosting Unique Woman’s Coalition’s (UWC) TransGiving Dinner will take place on Sunday, November 19, 2023, and will begin at 5 p.m. UWC is a non-profit organization dedicated to being a collective voice centering on the narratives and needs of Black Trans culture. The purpose of this holiday-inspired dinner is to celebrate transgender lives and accomplishments and remember those lost to anti-trans violence. The dinner will also provide much needed resources such as PPE (personal protective equipment) kits, sleeping bags, clothing, vaccines, and much more. For more information about the event, please visit https://www.theuwc.org.
The City of West Hollywood will host an in-person Transgender Day of Remembrance Ceremony at 6 p.m. on Sunday, November 19, 2023 featuring speakers and a reading of names to memorialize people who have been murdered as a result of anti-transgender violence. Transgender Day of Remembrance is part of the City of West Hollywood’s annual recognition of Transgender Awareness Month, which is recognized throughout the United States each November. Transgender Day of Remembrance is an opportunity to look forward to the future and recommit to ending discrimination and transphobia by amplifying the visibility and voices of the transgender community. The Transgender Day of Remembrance event will be broadcast live on the on the City’s WeHoTV channels and streams. For details, visit www.weho.org/wehotv. WeHoTV broadcasts are available within the City of West Hollywood on Spectrum Cable Channel 10. In addition, programming may be viewed using streaming platforms by searching “WeHoTV” within the search functions of AppleTV, Amazon FireTV, AndroidTV, and Roku services. It will also be available live and for replay at the City’s WeHoTV YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/wehotv. Visit the City’s online calendar for more information about this event. The City encourages every community stakeholder to honor the lives and memories of community members and take the opportunity to reflect on the work that remains to be done.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) tracks annual statistics of violence against the people in the transgender community. In the latest statistics currently available, HRC has reported that thus far in 2023 there have been at least 25 transgender or gender non-conforming people fatally shot or killed by other violent means in the United States. A disproportionately high number of victims are Black and Latinx transgender women. Past HRC reports include 41 deaths in 2022; 59 deaths in 2021; 33 deaths in 2020; 27 deaths in 2019; 26 deaths in 2018; 29 deaths in 2017; and 23 deaths in 2016. This wave of violence has been declared an epidemic by the American Medical Association. Rates of actual violence or deaths may, in fact, be higher but anti-transgender violence can be difficult to accurately measure as victims are sometimes misgendered in reports, which can delay awareness of deadly incidents.