Vassar students stand up to hate group
Students at Vassar College have raised more than $84,000 for The Trevor Project, which provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBT youth, in response to a visit from a hate group.
According to college newspaper The Miscellany News, students started to organize their counterprotest immediately after hearing that the Westboro Baptist Church were planning to picket the college on Feb. 28. The fundraiser was intended to raise $4,500, $100 for every minute the hate group intended to picket the college. Instead, they raised twice that amount in under twelve hours.
washington dc
From Washington Blade: Transgender Remembrance Day was observed at the Metropolitan Community Church of D.C. on Tuesday. (Photo by Michael Key)
They held candlelit vigils and film screenings. They read the names of victims and marched in the streets. Across the country last week, groups of people came together to remember the victims of anti-transgender violence, whether that was in small gatherings like in Winona, MN or in formal discussions with staff members from the White House.
Transgender Remembrance Day is recognized around the world as a day when victims can speak out and others can stand up to the violence that continues to plague this community. The day was created in honor of Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was murdered in Allston, MA, in 1998.
Allston and other Boston neighborhoods remembered Hester last week in a series of events. Read more about the effort spearheaded by local churches to continue the conversation about anti-transgender violence in Massachusetts.