Anchorage Assembly to take up Transgender Day of Remembrance resolution Nov. 17

The Anchorage Assembly is set to consider a resolution Nov. 17 recognizing Nov. 20 as Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual observance that, the resolution says, honors transgender, nonbinary and gender expansive people whose lives have been lost to anti-trans violence.

Nine of the Assembly's 12 members, including Chair Anna Brawley and Vice Chair Daniel Volland, are sponsoring it along with Mayor Suzanne LaFrance.

The resolution is on the meeting's consent agenda, a group of items the Assembly can pass in a single vote, though members can pull any item for a separate vote. It doesn't change any law or spend money.

Gwendolyn Ann Smith started the observance in 1999 to honor Rita Hester, a transgender woman of color killed in 1998, and others lost to anti-trans violence, the resolution says.

It says at least 400 transgender and gender nonconforming people have been victims of fatal violence in the United States since 2013, and that nearly 60% of them were Black transgender women. It uses "at least" because such deaths often go unreported or misreported, and the count doesn't include deaths by suicide or poverty.

It also says transgender people frequently face discrimination, and it honors "the bravery and resilience of Anchorage's transgender and gender expansive community." The city's Office of the Ombudsman prepared it.

The Assembly passed a similar resolution last year 9-3, according to the minutes. Members voted on it separately from the consent agenda, as they did with the night's other recognition resolutions.

Anchorage added sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes under its equal rights code in 2015, according to the Assembly's Pride Month resolution in June.