Niagara to recognize International Transgender Day

International Transgender Day of Visibility, observed on March 31, will honour the joy and resilience of trans and nonbinary communities.

The event starts with a celebration at St. Catharines City Hall, followed by a walk culminating at Silver Spire Church, and “anyone in the Niagara area is welcome to join us,” said Colleen McTigue, facilitator at Transgender Niagara, a trans peer support group.

On Nov. 20, a more solemn recognition occurs: The Transgender Day of Remembrance is a day to memorialize those who have been murdered as a result of transphobia.

“Someone along the way decided it would be a good idea to have a day to recognize transgender people and celebrate them for their contributions to society,” said McTigue. “We want to raise the visibility of the trans community so that people can see that we are just trying to live our lives. We are pretty ordinary people. We have no agenda other than to be who we are.”

The Day of Visibility is sponsored by The Niagara Transgender Action Coalition, which “formed around a need to provide services for the transgendered community, primarily around planning things like the days of remembrance and visibility, as well as meeting other needs such as providing after-care packages for people who undergo surgery,” explained McTigue.

The celebration will begin with a flag-raising ceremony at 4 p.m., remarks by local transgender activists and municipal politicians, as well as a performance by the award-winning Indigenous collective, Strong Water Singers.

On display at Silver Spire Church will be information tables provided by a host of local organizations including OUTniagara, Positive Living Niagara, Brock University, PFLAG Niagara, Quest Community Health Care Centre and Niagara Falls Community Health Care Centre.

“This is a great opportunity to build community and show allyship, for the Niagara community to come together and rally in support of Two-Spirit, Trans, and Non-Binary individuals,” said Celeste Turner, LGBTQ2+ support coordinator at the Niagara Falls Community Health Centre.

“We are also seeing an uprising in anti-trans hate speech across North America,” said Turner. “This event is also an important opportunity to celebrate the strength, resilience, achievements, and dedication of trans folk in our community.”

“We hope to demonstrate that there is a fairly large and thriving transgender community in the Niagara area. We also want to provide information about some of the more illustrious trans people who have made major contributions, like Wendy Carlos who pioneered the use of the synthesizer in music and wrote the score for the movie Tron, and the Wachowskis, who created the Matrix franchise,” said McTigue.

“We want to demonstrate that the transgender community is actually a vital part of the community. We do good things in the community,” continued McTigue. “The transgender community should not just be tolerated or accepted, but celebrated in society.  A lot of us feel we don’t have permission to exist in public and that’s what needs to change.”

McTigue also hopes to further the conversation around the fact that trans women, in particular, are often a specific target. “We are not trying to deceive people,” she said. “We are just trying to be who we are.”

“One of the things about transitioning,” explained McTigue, “is that you need to quickly present and live in your target gender in order to access medical treatments like hormones and surgery, if surgery is where you are headed. In public, you need to dress full time as a female, which means that you need to use the women's room because you could get beat up in the men’s room.”

“Unfortunately, there are still many challenges faced at no fault of the individual. I deal everyday with folks who are experiencing undue hardship and discrimination simply for who they are,” said Turner. “This affects well-being including healthcare, housing, and employment, to name a few. Laws have changed and human rights have come a long way but this doesn’t always lead to lives free of oppression, discrimination, harassment or worse.”

On Trans Day of Visibility, McTigue and Turner encourage everyone to take the time to learn more about challenges faced by trans folks and how to support the transgender individuals in their lives. Together, they said, we can work towards creating a more just and equitable world for all.