Honoring Trans History Awareness Week

November 20, 2023

November 20 is Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day to honor lives lost to anti-trans violence and join in solidarity. Rainbow History Project encourages you to learn more from GLAAD and from SPLC.

This year, D.C’s Transgender Day of Remembrance Commemoration honors the memory of local trans women killed this year: Jasmine “Star” Parker, Skylar Harrison Reeves and A’Nee Roberson.

In honor of Trans Awareness Week 2023, Rainbow History shines a spotlight on the incredible journeys and contributions of our transgender Community Pioneers as well as the work of our Trans History Initiative.

Community Pioneers biographies

RHP’s Trans History Initiative (THI) 2023 review

Led by Director Diedre Gray, THI offered Talking Trans History sessions at the Southwest Library and at Trans Pride 2023 and added 25 new locations to the RHP Places and Spaces social geography database.

THI also recorded thirteen new oral history interviews and expanded Rainbow History’s Trans History timelines.

In July, Gray contributed an op-ed in the Washington Blade.

THI also secured two collections for the RHP archives: the Ms. Earline Budd Collection and the DC Trans Coalition Collection. We’re proud to present the Ms. Earline Budd Collection for the first time.

We invite you to read a DC News Now article with Gray and Vincent E. Slatt, RHP’s director of archiving.

The Trans History Initiative was funded by a grant from the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs.