by Jeremy Rodriguez
(Jeremy Rodriguez is the editor of Philadelphia Gay News. The following editorial was first published on March 27, 2026, and appears here with permission.)

March 31 marked International Transgender Day of Visibility. It’s a day to raise awareness about the discrimination faced by trans people and show the world that the trans community is not going anywhere. In the United States, specifically, it serves as a giant middle finger to our current administration for trying to erase trans people from existence.

Have you had enough of the platitudes? Same here. The truth is that some of these messages can be hard to internalize when your community is under attack. As a nonbinary person with a trans partner, I felt those attacks firsthand back in November, and it was directly related to my work at PGN.

Leading up to International Transgender Day of Remembrance on Nov. 20, 2025, I had a simple idea for an editorial. I would compile a list of names of the trans people we lost to violence and suicide between Jan. 1 and Nov. 20, 2025 from tdor.translivesmatter.info. I would then put the names into a graphic for social media.

Unsurprisingly, the list included more than 200 names from across the globe. I was not surprised by that number. When you work in LGBTQ+ media, statistics like that — sadly — become commonplace for your work.

However, I was surprised by the reaction to the graphic: A simple black background with the headline “International Transgender Day of Remembrance: Honoring those we have lost in 2025” and a list of more than 200 names. Shortly after posting on our social media platforms, the graphic got a lot of attention. It currently has 6.6K reactions, 675 comments and 1.9K shares. The social media manager in me wanted to jump for joy, but the truth is that a lot of that social media chatter was far from joy. Here are a few comments from that original post, verbatim. Warning: Some of these comments are very disturbing and include topics of transphobia, self-harm and murder.

“They should of [sic] been given help rather than reaffirming them of their own sickness”

“There is no such thing as a trans child”

“What about straight people day, can we all have a day in which we can celebrate or [sic] sexuslity [sic]”

“Remember that you can never change your sex from what you are born as.”

A meme of what appears to be Jesus — albeit the version that conservative Christians depict as a white man — with the words “This is exactly why I drowned the first round of humans.”

Those were the more tame comments. The more disturbing comments advocated for violence:

“Bye. Good riddance.”

“Natural selection.”

“need to grow the list”

“Let’s double that list for next year”

A gif of Homer Simpson prancing around with the words “Half Way Done!”

My phone blew up for several hours with notifications that evening. Every time my phone lit up, it was a reminder that people hate us. It was dehumanizing and dreadful.

When I sat down to write this editorial for Trans Day of Visibility, I did not know what approach to take, but I knew I wanted to revisit that social media post. Perhaps there was something positive I could pull from it to show the importance of visibility.

As I looked through the comments, I began to notice that the negative responses were not as loud as I thought they were. They were actually drowned out by all of the love.

“You exist. You matter. You belong. There never has and never will be a point in human history when you don’t.”

“My heart breaks for each one of these people, as well as for those who have lost loved ones, and for those whose hearts are unable to love others or themselves.”

“To those who remain, stay safe, stay alive, and stay you.”

“You are loved. You matter. You are valid. Please do not dim your light, the world needs you. Stay strong. I will forever fight for Trans Rights and will always support the Trans community. Rest in Power to those that we’ve lost, you will never ever be forgotten.”

Others shared special memories of the people they lost. And the 1.9K shares on the post illustrated even more support. Not everyone posted heartfelt messages when they shared the graphic, but many simply shared. And that sharing ensured the message that March 31 is all about: visibility. And that visibility was louder than all of the hateful comments.

It’s hard to feel hope when so many want to tear you down, but we have to remember that there are people who have our backs. And our allies need to remember the importance of “sharing” — whether it’s sharing a social media post or sharing space with trans people in their lives. Sharing is caring. And we need people caring so we can continue fighting for our rights.

GUEST COMMENTARY
Volume 28
Issue 4