THE REMEMBRANCE REPORT
Insights and Data
Covers November 1, 2025 to October 31, 2026
Read our previous year’s reports:
The Remembrance Report
About Trans Day of Remembrance
Every year on November 20, Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR) is a day to honor the trans people who have died and raise awareness of fatal violence against our community. TDoR was founded by trans activist Gwendolyn Ann Smith in 1999 to grieve the death of Rita Hester and other transgender people who had been lost. This year, we honor the 26 known trans people in the United States killed in the past year (Nov 2025–Oct 2026), as well as 34 reported trans people who have been lost to other causes known and unknown.
Smith once so aptly said: “With so many seeking to erase transgender people — sometimes in the most brutal ways possible — it is vitally important that those we lose are remembered, and that we continue to fight for justice.”
Context: Our Political Climate
The erasure of transgender people is a deeply political issue. In addition to the fatal violence trans people face just for being ourselves, the political violence can be seen from every corner of the US. In statehouses across the country, as well as on the federal level under the Trump administration, politicians have tried, and in some places may have succeeded, to strip transgender people of the rights that everyone in this country deserves.
Alongside these actions, transgender people have been the subject of rhetorical attacks and right-wing talking points debating the validity of our humanity. Common questions seem to be: Are trans people real? Should we be allowed to play sports? Should we be allowed to use the restroom? Is it possible for a child to know they’re trans, and should they be allowed to transition? Should trans people exist at all? And with 2026 being a mid-term election year, we saw anti-trans politicians spend millions of dollars to test out both new and tired old rhetoric attacking the trans community in an attempt to score political points.
Our social, political, and legal landscape is one where trans people’s ability to live our lives with dignity, and in some cases to live at all, has been placed up for debate. Today, 30 US states still do not prohibit the “trans panic defense” to be used in court, whereby an alleged attacker can argue that finding out someone is transgender is justification for violence against them.
In addition to the 26 known transgender people killed in the past year, we know of an additional 21 people we’ve lost to suicide. The Trevor Project reports that “LGBTQ+ young people are not inherently prone to suicide risk because of their sexual orientation or gender identity but rather placed at higher risk because of how they are mistreated and stigmatized in society.” All trans people deserve to live their longest, fullest lives free from bullying, rejection, violence, or discrimination.
By the numbers
The trans community increasingly relies on trans and LGBTQ+ activists and organizations to report anti-trans violence and other deaths in the community, especially as the federal government actively erases gender identity data from its own surveys. This is Advocates for Trans Equality’s fifth year producing the Remembrance Report, and over that time, the number of recorded violent deaths has varied. Unfortunately, fatal violence against transgender people is difficult to track, as these stories are often misreported or not reported at all.
Some transgender people’s identities are not honored in death, and many may not be reported as being transgender in their obituaries or police reports. For this reason, researchers cannot make comparisons or inferences about how fatal violence against trans people has changed over time. We must emphasize that the numbers presented here are based on the publicly reported stories we could find through various online sources and likely do not represent the full scope of anti-trans violence and our community’s losses.
A4TE’s 2026 Trans Remembrance Report has recorded 60 deaths of transgender people in the United States, including 26 known killings, 21 suicides, and 13 of natural or unknown causes. Of the 26 reported stories of violent deaths, about 60% (16) of those lost were Black, including 15 Black trans women. This means that Black trans women accounted for more than half of all known stories of fatal violence against transgender people in the past year.
Visit our In Memoriam page to read the stories of those we’ve lost. And if you’d like to make an addition or correction, please contact us at remember@transequality.org.
Report Insights
- 60trans people remembered
- 26lost to violence
- 21lost to suicide
- Violence
- Suicide
- Unknown
- Natural Causes
- Trans Woman
- Trans Man
- Nonbinary
- Black
- White
- AAPI
- Latine
- Unknown
- Black Trans Women
- Other races and genders lost to violence
FAQs
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We get our information from publicly available sources, as well as directly from family members or community members who contact us. All sources are cited on each person’s profile on the “In Memoriam” page. To add to this project, you can contact us at remember@transequality.org.
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The Trans Remembrance Project holds the memory of transgender people who have passed away due to violence, suicide, natural causes, or other causes. Advocates for Trans Equality defines “transgender” as anyone whose gender identity doesn’t match what they were thought to be at birth. We include binary transgender and nonbinary people, third gender, Two Spirit, Faʻafafine, and other non-cisgender people in our memorial.
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Violent deaths are those that occurred as a result of physical violence or an attack against a person. These include crimes like assault, homicide, or manslaughter.