Anchorage Assembly passes resolution marking Nov. 20 as Transgender Day of Remembrance

The Anchorage Assembly passed a resolution Tuesday, Nov. 17, recognizing Nov. 20 as Transgender Day of Remembrance. Assembly Chair Anna Brawley, Vice Chair Daniel Volland, seven other Assembly members and Mayor Suzanne LaFrance sponsored the resolution, which the Office of the Ombudsman prepared. Members Jared Goecker, Donald Handeland and Keith McCormick were not among the sponsors.

The annual observance honors transgender, nonbinary and gender expansive people around the world whose lives have been lost to anti-trans violence, the resolution says. Gwendolyn Ann Smith founded it in 1999 to honor Rita Hester, a transgender woman of color killed in 1998.

The resolution cites at least 400 transgender and gender nonconforming people killed in fatal violence in the United States since 2013. Of those, it says 70.4% were people of color, 82.3% were transgender women and 59.4% were Black transgender women. It uses "at least" because such deaths often go unreported or misreported, and the count does not include deaths by suicide or poverty.

The text says transgender people face discrimination, hate crimes, high unemployment, homelessness and barriers to quality health care. It honors "the bravery and resilience of Anchorage's transgender and gender expansive community."

The same night, the Assembly passed a resolution recognizing Nov. 20 through Dec. 20 as Survivors of Homicide Victims Awareness Month. All 12 Assembly members and the mayor sponsored that one.

The Assembly recognized Transgender Day of Remembrance last year as well. At its Nov. 18, 2025, meeting, members pulled that resolution from the consent agenda, the group of items passed in a single vote, and approved it 9-3, according to the minutes. Scott Myers, McCormick and Goecker voted no.

Then-Assembly Member Felix Rivera read that version, which stated that in 2024, "at least 36 transgender or gender non-conforming people in the United States died by violent means." It also said Alaska's human rights statute provides limited protections and that the state human rights commission had narrowed its enforcement to employment complaints. Anchorage added sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes under its Title 5 equal rights code in 2015, according to the Assembly's Pride Month resolution from June.