The Science of Who We Are, and the Reality of What We Lose
Transgender Awareness Month • Transgender Awareness Week • Transgender Day of Remembrance
November is Transgender Awareness Month — a time set aside to recognize the lives, voices, and resilience of transgender and gender-diverse people. It’s a month for learning and unlearning, for listening, for honoring truths that too many still dismiss or misunderstand.
Within it is Transgender Awareness Week, running from November 13–19, when the focus shifts toward education and visibility. And today, November 20, is the Transgender Day of Remembrance — a day specifically dedicated to memorializing transgender people who have been killed through acts of violence and hate.
It is the most solemn day in the month. A day that should never have had to exist.
But it does.
And because of that, we tell the truth.
Biology Is Messy, Not Political
People like tidy boxes: male or female, gay or straight, this or that. But biology doesn’t care about those categories. Human development isn’t a single switch; it’s a long choreography of chromosomes, hormones, receptors, and timing. External genitalia form in the first trimester. The brain develops under hormonal influence later, in the second trimester. When those systems fall out of sync, you get a person whose anatomy and inner identity don’t align.
That isn’t a mistake. It isn’t “rebellion.” It isn’t ideology. It’s how nature works.
Intersex people exist — proof that chromosomes don’t always match anatomy. Transgender people exist — proof that the brain’s map of self can differ from the body’s assignment. And brain-structure research reflects what many trans people have always known: identity is not imagined. It’s wired into them from the start.
None of this is a “choice,” any more than being gay is a choice. Biology is not binary. It’s diverse, layered, and sometimes wonderfully complicated.
The Pain Doesn’t Come From the Identity — It Comes From the World
Gender dysphoria doesn’t arise because someone is trans. It arises because they’re forced to live in bodies or environments that don’t allow them to be themselves without fear. And too often, that fear is justified.
Transgender people — especially trans women of color — live with a level of vulnerability that others never have to think about. The violence they face isn’t theoretical. It’s not political talking points. It is real, and it is deadly.
That is why the Transgender Day of Remembrance matters. It names the truth about the world we live in and the price people pay simply for existing.
We Share More Than We Admit
Everyone under the LGBTQ+ umbrella knows something about being outside the lines. Different stories, different paths — yes. But the underlying experience is familiar:
Being told that something innate is wrong.
Having to explain yourself to survive.
Being asked to justify your own existence.
We are far more connected than the world wants us to be. And part of honoring this day is recognizing that solidarity isn’t optional — it’s necessary. The forces that target trans people aren’t stopping with them. The fault lines may look different, but they run through the same ground.
Today is a memorial. A day of names, of stories cut short, of lives lost to a violence that should never have existed. Nothing about this should feel normal. Nothing about it should be inevitable. But the least we can do is look it in the eye.
We remember those we lost.
We refuse to forget why.
And we choose — every day, not just today — to fight for a world where transgender people can live long enough to be known for their lives, not their deaths.
Author’s Note
Today holds weight. Transgender Day of Remembrance is not about discourse or debate; it’s about honoring lives lost to violence that should never have existed in the first place. My intention with this piece is simple: to stand with the transgender community, especially on a day shaped by grief, and to help widen the circle of understanding for anyone who reads my work.
If you are transgender, gender-diverse, or grieving someone you’ve lost, I hope today brings gentleness and space. If you’re new to learning, I hope something here helps you see the fullness and humanity of people whose lives deserve protection, dignity, and joy.
This month — Transgender Awareness Month — is a chance to deepen our understanding. Today is a moment to pause, remember, and recommit ourselves to a world where this day is no longer necessary.