Congress held first-ever forum on violence against trans community

The bipartisan committee was launched by the House LGBT Equality Caucus earlier this week.

In a statement, Quigley says that despite recent legal and social gains, transgender people still are vulnerable to violence and harassment.

A core problem, she said, is the fact that there is no national database to track violence against transgender people. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.), Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.).

The first Transgender Day of Remembrance was held to honour the memory of Rita Hester, a trans woman who was murdered in 1998, but this first vigil also commemorated all the transgender people lost to violence that year, and began a tradition that has become the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. The directors of both organizations agree that they need “accurate reporting of bias-motivated incidents” so anti-transgender violence can be appropriately addressed.

“The goal of the task force is to analyze the challenges and barriers and figure out what the government’s role is in making life easier for transgenders”, Mr. Flynn tells the Monitor.

A group of lawmakers kicked off a new congressional task force for transgender rights on Tuesday with the first-ever congressional forum on transgender life in the U.S.

Earlier this year Honda opened up about his transgender granddaughter.

“As the proud grandpa of a transgender grandchild, I hope she can feel safe at school without fear of being bullied”, he tweeted.

‘When I meet with the transgender community, they say: “Listen to us,”‘ said Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi.

The task force will work to develop legislation and other initiatives to ensure that transgender people have equal access and treatment under the law.