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Celebrating International Transgender Visibility Day’s 15th time, people from Kosovo, the Netherlands, and the United States are holding events this Sunday to honor the transgender and nonbinary communities.
Its leader, Rachel Crandall-Crocker, a psychiatrist and the executive producer of the nonprofit lobbying group Transgender Michigan, still can’t believe it.
“It really is incredible how far it has come,” she told NPR. “I wasn’t expecting to start an international movement.”
More than 1.6 million people in the U.S. identify as transgender, according to a 2022 review from the Williams Institute, a research facility at UCLA’s law school.
This week’s events come as transgender women’s rights have become extremely restricted across the U.S. in recent years. There has also been a flood of policy against trans athletes and transgender performers, and some states have passed bills restricting or banning gender-affirming treatment for transgender children.
A time to promote pleasure with community
In 2009, Crandall-Crocker needed a reason to band together and experience joy with other transgender people.
At the time, the only event she knew of geared toward transgender people was Transgender Day of Remembrance, on Nov. 20, dedicated to honoring the lives lost to anti-trans violence.
“I wanted a day that we could focus on the living,” Crandall-Crocker said. “And where we could hold rallies all over the world as one community.”
That idea turned into International Transgender Day of Visibility, which falls on March 31 every year. According to Crocker, she chose the springtime date because she wanted to be away from Pride Month and Transgender Day of Remembrance in June.
In the first year, groups in only a handful of cities in the U.S. celebrated. But Crandall-Crocker, with the help of Susan Crocker, her wife and Transgender Michigan’s operations director, continued to raise awareness about the day and its purpose.
Trans activists from all over the world joined in, organizing rallies, block parties, and festivals with a focus on transgender joy. The U.S. government has recognized International Transgender Day of Visibility in recent years, and skyscrapers all over the country have lit up with the transgender flag’s colors: light pink, light blue, and white.
According to Crandall-Crocker, who has Tourette syndrome, organizing International Transgender Day of Visibility taught her a valuable lesson: “You don’t need to be perfect to change the world.”
“I have a disability,” she added. “However, I changed the world. You don’t have to be perfect. Come and change it along with me.”
Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
