Each year activists hold vigils on Nov. 20 to honor transgender and gender non-conforming people who lost their lives to violence.
The Transgender Day of Remembrance, founded in 1998, has become an essential way of memorializing those who were killed because of their gender identity.
Yet activists also want to celebrate how trans and gender non-conforming people thrive even when they face discrimination, harassment and violence.
For the second year, they are marking a Trans Day of Resilience, also on Nov. 20, by commissioning inspirational artwork that tells the "stories of trans power, vision and leadership."
Strong Families, an initiative that focuses on securing equality for all families, is leading the project, which has partnered eight trans and gender non-conforming artists with social justice organizations around the country.
The eight posters are vivid representations of how gender identity can be a catalyst for change and empowerment.
Ebin Lee, a 26-year-old trans artist who created a poster (above) that celebrates beauty, wanted to remind people that "loving yourself and appreciating how you look is very much a radical act."
Lee's artwork also incorporates the #SayHerName hashtag, which has been used to memorialize black women who experienced violence, and particularly as a result of deadly police encounters. The hashtag was widely used this summer to protest the death of Sandra Bland.
"It could be anybody I know," Lee says. "It could be myself."
The poster, Lee adds, is a form of resistance that doesn't require marching in the street, which could be dangerous for some trans and gender-nonconforming people: "We forget there are many different ways to protest and stand up against things that happen."
