The City of West Hollywood and its Transgender Advisory Board recognize November as Transgender Awareness Month with a series of events, which this year will be held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kicking-off events this year, the City will present the Transgender Awareness Month Awards on Wednesday, Nov. 4th, 2020 at 6 p.m. via the Zoom virtual platform.
This year’s honorees are Nick Adams, GLAAD’s Director of Transgender Media & Representation, for his work to ensure that transgender individuals are properly represented and accurately portrayed in the media.
Awards will be also be presented to the organization Invisible Men and the Invisible Men founder Luckie Alexander, for his work to highlight issues facing transgender men, and to Trans Can Work, an organization focused on raising employers’ awareness of the skills and talents that gender diverse professionals can offer.
On Thursday, Nov. 12th, 2020 at 5 p.m., the City will present a moderated roundtable discussion focused on a City-funded anti-transphobia effort designed to educate employers and employees on how to properly address gender diverse employees.
The roundtable, Why Trans Can Work: Helping Gender Diverse People Thrive in the Workplace and Employers Prepare for Tomorrow’s Workforce, will be an opportunity to introduce the newly developed toolkit, which was designed by Trans Can Work, in collaboration with the West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and with the support of the City of West Hollywood.
The roundtable discussion will be moderated by NBC4 Anchor and Reporter Mekahlo Medina and feature the following panelists: City of West Hollywood Councilmember John D’Amico; Community Organizer and Trainer Alexis Sanchez; Trans Can Work’s Vice President of Programs Drian Juarez; Chief Human Resources Officer for the Los Angeles LGBT Center Sharon Franklin Brown; West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce President & CEO Genevieve Morrill; and Torie Osborn, Senior Strategist for Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl. Those interested in viewing the event can watch via Zoom.
Transgender Day of Remembrance is part of the City of West Hollywood’s annual recognition of Transgender Awareness Month, which is recognized throughout the United States each November. Transgender Day of Remembrance is an opportunity to look forward to the future and recommit to ending discrimination and transphobia by amplifying the visibility and voices of the transgender community. The City will host an online Transgender Day of Remembrance Ceremony at 6 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 20th, 2020 featuring speakers and a reading of names to memorialize people who have been murdered as a result of anti-transgender violence.
Individuals interested in volunteering in the traditional Reading of the Names will be asked to recite the name of at least one person and brief biographical details of the person memorialized along with the circumstances surrounding their murder. The reading will be recorded and then made part of a video presentation, which will be played during the virtual event.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) tracks annual statistics of violence against the people in the transgender community. In the latest statistics currently available, HRC has reported that in 2020 there have been at least 33 transgender or gender non-conforming people fatally shot or killed by other violent means in the United States.
The City of West Hollywood has been one of the most outspoken cities in the nation in advocating for the legal rights of LGBT people. More than 40 percent of residents in the City of West Hollywood identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. The City of West Hollywood is one of the first municipalities to form a Transgender Advisory Board, which addresses matters of advocacy on behalf of transgender people in the areas of education, community awareness, and empowerment, and makes recommendations to the West Hollywood City Council.
As part of its support of the transgender community, the City of West Hollywood has a Transgender Resource Guide available on the City’s website, which provides information about a variety of resources including legal, health, and social services, available in the Greater Los Angeles area to enhance and improve the well-being of transgender people.
