What is International Transgender Day of Visibility?
International Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV) is an annual day of recognition, celebrated around the world on March 31st. The day is dedicated to celebrating the accomplishments and victories of transgender and gender non-conforming people, while simultaneously raising awareness of the work still needed to combat discrimination and violence that transgender and gender non-conforming people face.
Here are 12 ways you can get involved for TDOV:
- Go to or plan a TDOV event. Check out a list of TDOV events across the country, courtesy of Eventbrite. You can also search TDOV events on most social media platforms like Facebook.
- Support trans-led organizations. Less than 10 percent of grants going to LGBTQ organizations go to trans-led ones. Many trans organizations run on donations from people like you! Find and support organizations and programs run by trans people, such as OUTlaw at the University of Mississippi School of Law and the Transgender Education and Advocacy Program with the ACLU of Mississippi.
- Post trans affirming and educational content on social media. Post great informational graphics such as infographics by Trans Student Educational Resources (TSER). Use the hashtag #TDOV or #TDOVMS, in Mississippi.
- Recognize the intersections of transness and other identities and take action to re-prioritize. Intersections of transness and other identities includes race, sexuality, class, disability, citizenship, and more. Recognition does not just entail acknowledgment, it means taking action and centering trans women of color in all spaces that you engage in. Speaking up is the first step!
- Work with your employer, organization or business in making women’s spaces inclusive and supportive of trans women. If you have access to women’s spaces, make sure they are not exclusionary of trans women. Whether a women’s college, athletics program, restroom, support group, or music event, trans women are women and deserve to be part of women’s spaces. Also, recognize that we need more than inclusion: the entire space must be rethought in how it perpetuates transmisogyny.
- Contact lawmakers and act in support of trans inclusive policy, including organizational, local, state-wide, and federal non-discrimination policy. Act against anti-transgender policy such as Mississippi’s SB 2536. For ways to do so in Mississippi, contact organizations like the ACLU of Mississippi and HRC Mississippi.
- Learn trans terminology. Learn the difference between gender identity, gender expression, sex assigned at birth, and sexuality by use of the Gender Bread Person. Up your knowledge on important trans terminology with the PFLAG National glossary, Trans Student Educational Resources’s Definitions and the Transgender Education and Advocacy Program’s Education Resource Guide.
- Read something educational about becoming a better trans ally. For families and caretakers of transgender people: Our Trans Loved Ones. It has also been translated into Spanish, called Nuestros Seres Queridos Trans. Another great list of good reads for parents and families of transgender youth can be found on the ACLU of Mississippi’s Trans Resources for Parents Guide. Other good reads include PFLAG’s Guide to Being a Trans Ally, from their Straight for Equality(TM) program, GLAAD’s Tips for Trans Allies of Transgender People, the Trevor Project’s A Guide to Being a Better Ally to Transgender and Nonbinary Youth and the ACLU of Mississippi’s Advocating for LGBTQ Student Rights in the Mississippi Delta Resource Guide.
- Learn about trans history. Did you know that trans women of color were on the front lines of Stonewall? That a transgender man helped fund the New Age Movement? That a transgender woman exposed the U.S. government’s war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan? Check out Historian.org’s What is Trans History? for interesting historical facts and events.
- Tell people when they say something transphobic or cissexist. This may be calling out, calling in, or a different form of recognition. Accountability is vital for our community. This is the time to speak up!
- Host a movie night, featuring accurate trans representing storylines. For some of the best trans movies, check out Queer In The World’s The Best Transgender Movies You Should Have Already Seen By Now.
- Reach out to a trans person and offer to take them out to lunch, engage them in conversation, ask them how you can best support them or just tell them that they are loved.
