Trans Lives Lost Memorial Art Installation

Say Their Names

In the past 30 years, too many of our transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive siblings across the state have lost their lives to violence.
Unfortunately, hundreds but more likely thousands of deaths are unrecorded due to identity erasure and systematic oppression. Today we say their names, so they cannot be forgotten.  

In celebrating 30 years of Pride here in the Lehigh Valley, we must also mourn 30 years of lives lost. Through a memorial art installation at Lehigh Valley Pride 2023, we honor and remember lives taken from our community; not just the names we know but also those who are unknown.

The data for this project was collected from a variety of sources including Eastern PA Trans Equity Project, HRC, GLAAD, and more. To create the statistics we share here, our team considered hundreds of records from these sources. We considered the details shared about our lost community members, the context in which they lost their lives, and location so that we could specifically highlight members of our Pennsylvania LGBTQIA+ community. The methods for data collection and analysis are presented below. 

From 1993 to early 2024 at least 642 transgender, nonbinary, and gender expansive people have been murdered or died due to homicide, or violence, or negligence in the United States. Of those lives lost, 453, and possibly more, were people of color with black, Latin, Asian, or indigenous heritage. We acknowledge that this is likely an underestimate, as information on race and ethnicity is often not available in records of these deaths. For 111 victims included in this memorial, our team did not have information about the victim's race or ethnicity. 

We have lost 27 transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive members of our community to violence here in Pennsylvania. At least 24 were people of color. 

In Memoriam

Transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive people of color who lost their lives to violence in Pennsylvania; 1993 to 2023. 

Methods

After collecting data from many sources (see below), our team considered several factors for inclusion in our analysis such as location, cause of death, and available information on the identity of victims including information on race and ethnicity and gender identity and gender presentation. Deaths due to murder, homicide, manslaughter, negligence (such as medical negligence directly related to the victims transgender identity), or deaths after experiencing extreme violence were included. Although deaths due to suicide and overdose, sometimes called deaths of dispare, are part of serious epidemics that affect our community, they are not included here. Deaths deemed accidental or classified as unconfirmed or cause not determined were included unless available context suggested that we exclude death from this project such as vehicular accidents*. Deaths due to COVID-19 were not included. 

Names reported for members of our Pennsylvania community are based on what was most consistently found in the sources we used. If you would like to request a correction, if we are missing information, or if we have neglected to include a member of our community who has lost their life to violence, please contact Christina Graham, Data & Evaluation Manager, so that we can make corrections. 

*Hit-and-run cases were included

Page updated on November 13, 2023

Sources

Eastern PA Trans Equity Project - Transgender Day of Remembrance and Resilience
https://www.patransequity.org/2021/11/19/transgender-day-of-remembrance-and-resilience/

Federal Bureau of Investigation Crime Data Explorer
https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/home

GLAAD - TDOR: In Memoriam
https://glaad.org/tdor-memoriam/

Human Rights Campaign - Fatal Violence Against the Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Community
https://www.hrc.org/resources/fatal-violence-against-the-transgender-and-nonbinary-community-in-2023

Remembering Our Dead
https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/

Wikipedia - List of people killed for being transgender
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_killed_for_being_transgender