Today Is Transgender Day of Remembrance

November 20th marks the annual worldwide observance of the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), a memorial to the many people lost to anti-transgender violence.

This is a day to pause and remember lives lost this year due to anti-transgender violence.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the first TDOR, held in remembrance of Rita Hester, a trans woman of color whose life was cut tragically short in 1999.

ThinkProgress offers these five fast facts about what transgender people experience in society:

• There were 226 transgender people murdered in the past year worldwide, but those are only the known reported incidents.

• In 2013, 72 percent of all anti-LGBTQ homicide victims were transgender women; 67 percent were specifically transgender women of color.

• 41 percent of transgender people have attempted suicide, compared to 4.6 percent of the general population, and studies suggest that rampant discrimination is responsible for the disparity.

• 55 percent of students have experienced verbal harassment in school because of their gender expression; 23 percent have experienced physical harassment.

• Transgender people are twice as likely to be currently homeless, twice as likely to be unemployed, and four times as likely to be living in poverty.

I realize that the idea and understanding of transgender people is new to many, as the media is just now giving attention to trans folks. At the end of the day, what's important to stress is that TDOR is about expressing all of who we are without apology.