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ROME, Italy — The United States Embassy to the Holy See celebrated “Transgender Day of Remembrance” Sunday, offering tribute “to those of the transgender community who have been murdered because of hate.”
According to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is an annual observance on November 20 that honors the memory of transgender people whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence.
Transgender activist Gwendolyn Ann Smith established TDOR in 1999 as a vigil to honor the memory of Rita Hester, a black transgender person who was killed in Allston Massachusetts in 1998.
In his 2016 letter on marriage and the family, Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love”), Francis said that young people should be taught “respect and appreciation” for sexual differences, as a way of overcoming self-absorption.
Especially when experiencing difficulties with gender identity, “the young need to be helped to accept their own body as it was created,” he insisted.