Honouring Transgender Day of Visibility
The International Transgender Day of Visibility is held annually on March 31 to celebrate trans-diverse people globally and honour their courage and visibility to live openly and authentically.
This year’s 12th annual celebration is a day to also raise awareness around the stigma and discrimination that trans people still face, especially young transgender people, trans people living with HIV, trans people who are currently transitioning and are therefore more likely to be identified as transgender, and transgender sex workers.
We also acknowledge there are too many invisibilities around the impact of HIV criminalisation on trans persons. Cecilia Chung, Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives and Evaluation of the Transgender Law Center, who is also a member of our Global Advisory Panel told our Beyond Blame @HIV2020 webinar that there is not enough data on the impact of HIV criminalisation laws on transgender persons. She said such data are not “uniformly collected across the world… The numbers still remain invisible even though we know for sure there are [HIV criminalisation] cases.”
Although this day primarily serves to celebrate and honour trans-diverse persons, it also offers allies an opportunity to contribute to supportive legislation, policy and financial commitment of trans-diverse communities globally.
HJN also celebrates trans-diverse people globally and we honour their courage and visibility to live openly and authentically. We also call for more visibility for trans people in data collection, including our own, as well as reforms of HIV-related criminal laws and their enforcement that disproportionately target trans-diverse people.