You can watch this year's service on YouTube.
Welcome
Welcome to our service for Trans Day of Remembrance 2024. We gather together today, at different times and from different places, but with all those around the world who today are pausing, as we are, to commemorate the hundreds of transgender people who have died in the past year as a consequence of transphobic hatred and violence. We meet together, and we meet in the presence of God, who knows our needs, hears our cries, feels our pain, and heals our wounds.
Over the course of this service, we will hear some readings, poems, music, and have a chance to see and commemorate the 406 people whose deaths have been recorded this year. We will remember also those whose deaths have not been recorded, and those whose trans identity has been erased from their death. This service has been organised by SCM’s trans theology group, but you will see a range of different people leading different parts of the service, and also hear words written by those who cannot be publicly visible. After the service, please be gentle with yourself, and know that you are not alone in your grief, your rage, or your despair.
Gathering
As we gather together this evening to mourn the dead, we gather also as a protest for the living, for trans people denied healthcare, for trans children denied authenticity, for trans identities that are belittled and ignored, for trans communities that are scapegoated for society’s troubles.
We gather together to lament the circumstances of our world which allow transphobic violence to continue, and which bring us back to this vigil each year.
We gather together to profess our belief that God who transcends gender created humanity in beautiful diversity, and that just as God delights in trans freedom, authenticity, and joy, so too God mourns with us the violence and oppression experienced by trans people around the world.
Opening Prayer
God of creation,
We remember that you call us good, precious, worthy of protection and love.
We thank you for the diversity of your creation, for every single trans person you have made and loved.
We bring before you the trans people we know and love, and those trans people who we do not know but who we are brought into community with in your love.
We ask for your strength for our community, to care for our trans siblings and our trans selves.
We seek your strength, your gentleness, your justice, your shelter, your unconditional and boundless love.
God of justice, be with us in our grief, share in our anger at lives taken, make your peace known in our world.
Guide us in your ways. Amen.
A Reading from Matthew 5:1-12
1 When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 And he began to speak and taught them, saying:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Lamentation
This year, we commemorate 406 people who have lost their lives due to transphobic hatred and violence. The majority of these deaths which have been recorded are the consequence of violence, and the majority of this violence is directed against trans women of colour. Those we have lost because of transphobic violence range in age from 14 to 65, and the majority were from Brazil, Mexico, and the US. Some deaths by suicide have been recorded, but we also commemorate all those who have died by suicide whose names have not been recorded, and those who have died by any means whose trans identities were not recognised either in their life or their death.
God, in our despair we commend to your love all these your children whose lives were taken this year because of transphobic hatred.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
God, in our grief we commend to your love all who mourn the death of trans friends, family, loved ones, and strangers.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
God, in our anger we commend to your love ourselves and all who long for and fight for an end to this violence.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
The Reading of a Poem by Jay Hulme; ‘What Rage or Madness Drives You?’ Joan of Arc, March 1430
You will not find Joan of Arc in the Bible,
she is something stranger than scripture.
Her sword rattles among the saints,
arms aching for another fight.
When she arrived she found Heaven
more difficult than expected –
a place of pure justice; her steel unnecessary.
Hands unbloodied. Speeches unspoken.
Joan waits for the prayers of wronged women.
Her hands grasp the pommel of a blade.
When God asks what she is doing
in this place of peace, she says:
Lord, you have made me
for war, and I have no idea
what to do with the gift
of all I was fighting for.
Remembering Those Who Have Died
Please join with us in remembering those who we have lost this year.
Prayer After People
Loving God, we give you thanks for these souls we lay before you.
We lament their loss, and ask that you send your mercy to those who loved them.
We cry for your justice upon those whose actions have led to these deaths.
We bless you that in bearing your image, these beloved children of God have brought your light to the world, however briefly.
For we see in their friendships, reflections of your compassion,
in their integrity, demonstrations of your goodness,
in their faithfulness, glimpses of your eternal love,
in their courage, the sign of your Holy Spirit.
Grant to each of us, beloved and bereft, the grace to follow their examples
so that we with them may come to your everlasting kingdom,
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who died and rose again and opened the gate of glory, to whom be praise for all eternity. Amen.
The Reading of a Poem by Jay Hulme: Seeking Trans Ancestors in Old Provincial Graveyards
The dead are calling out again;
I heard their names the other day,
rarely spoken beyond the edge
of the graveyard – unconsecrated
ground cannot hold them for long.
There are names and names and
empty syllables ‘until the day break’.
Every day breaks like a man,
and every night falls like a woman,
and the dawn arises and the moon
in the daytime hangs silent and awkward,
like the rest who’ve never belonged.
And they hang pride flags outside the churches
now, and the homophobes claim it’s God’s rainbow,
and the queers claim it’s our rainbow, and God claims
all of us anyway, long before we are born.
In the wind I hear the names
again. Their echoes are all the syllables
we've never quite said. Dead. Undead.
Dead. Undead. Dead. Undead.
Until the day break I walk the church line,
drag my feet over endless graves,
speak the names. All these empty
names. Those too weathered
to read, I speak loudest
of all. A response call. Joshua.
Edward. Mary. Beloved of her family.
Born. Lived. Died. A date. A promise. A fall.
Closing Prayer
Loving God, You tell us ‘Blessed are those who mourn’. Be with those today who are angry, those who are tired of fighting, those crying and those hiding tears. God, You know what it is to be without those you love; you have wept at graves and been with your children at the end of their lives. Accompany us today as we go from this place into a world that creates the need for this mourning – a world that ignores your cries for justice, a world that dismisses your calling for us to live fully, a world that takes our siblings away from us.
Loving God, You tell us ‘they shall be comforted’, may we know this comfort from you. A comfort that envelopes us softly, reminding us of you as our Creator breathing us into being, our Redeemer coming so we may have life in abundance and our Sustainer empowering us to show your love to all. May we meet you afresh in the comfort of the community surrounding us today.
Blessed are those filled with anger, their light will never burn out. Blessed are those who cry, they will be held through their tears. Blessed are the fearful, they will be protected. Blessed are those who mourn, they will be comforted.
With thanks to SCM's Trans Theology Group for organising this service.