As many of you may already know Transgender Day of Remembrance first started to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 kicked off the "Remembering Our Dead" web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999. Rita Hester’s murder — like most anti-transgender murder cases — has yet to be solved, since then several more of our community members have been brutally murdered over the years which has resulted in mobilizing other cities to do the same.

We are nearing the 12th anniversary of the Trans Day of Remembrance which is on November 20th. Several organizations and groups are currently organizing locally and nationally for their cities.

With the Transgender Day of Remembrance just around the corner. We at TransCEND thought it would be a great idea to reach out to some well known Transgender celebrities and get their thoughts on what it means to be Transgender and to have a day of remembrance specifically for the trans community.

We recently reached out to VH1's "Transform Me" Hostess Laverne Cox to see if she would be willing to share her thoughts about TDOR. We thought it would be a great opportunity for folks to hear from her personally. She was so kind to provide us with her feedback.

So these are the questions that we had prepared for her with her answers:

1. What does being a part of the trans community mean to you?

Laverne: Being a part of this community means being out and accepting all aspects of myself. As I work on myself psychologically and spiritually, I am amazed at the depths of my own personal shame and self hatred. We live in a society that's often straight up hostile towards trans people. It stands to reason that many of us would internalize that hostility towards ourselves and each other as trans people. Our own self hatred not only effects how we treat ourselves but how we treat each other as trans people. As I try to truly move beyond my own self hatred, I strive to have more compassion and acceptance for myself as a trans woman and for other trans people.

2. What does the Trans Day of Remembrance mean to you?

Laverne: It angers me that a Trans Day of Remembrance is even necessary, that so many of us are targets of violence and loose our lives because of other people's hatred. But this day is so necessary so that we not only remember those in our community who have been lost to violence but so that we raise awareness so that this kind of violence ends. I need to imagine a day where gender oppression will cease and we can truly accept ourselves and each other. I think if each of us can begin to examine ourselves and what our issues are with ourselves, we will accept each other more.

3. What are your thoughts on what has been going on in the Trans community as of late?

Laverne: There are so many things happening in our community lately. Two specific issues that I find fascinating are the case of Lana Lawless in California and Nikki Araguz in Texas. Lawless, a post operative trans woman, is suing the LPGA because she was denied membership in the national women's golf governing body because she was not born female. Araguz, another post operative trans woman, in Texas was recently widowed. Her late husband's family is contesting her rights as her late husband's spouse, to inherit his estate and death benefits. His family is claiming their marriage was never legal because she wasn't born a woman.

Both cases represent attempts to deny the civil rights of these women by denying their womanhood. Both cases suggest in the most basic prejudiced logic of transphobia that no matter how many surgeries you have or how you identify, you're still a man. Both cases demonstrate the limits of a gender binary, gender apartheid system. Until we can expand and fully explode what it means to be a man and a woman trans folks will never have full equality.

On another legal note I am super excited that California just elected it's first transgender judge. Congrats to Victoria Kolakowski!

4. How has it impacted you?

Laverne: I am always saddened at how individual prejudices and ignorance can be systemic and function to deny folks basic human rights and dignity.

5. How has life as an out trans celebrity been for you?

Laverne: Well to be brutally honest, I think in the back of my mind I believed that once I starred in my own television show, all the pain and horrors of my childhood and all the discrimination I have experienced as an adult because I am trans would melt away. Of course, that didn't happen. I always knew intellectually that nothing outside of me could make me feel better about being me. Now I am beginning to understand it emotionally. That work is a lot harder.

I have also realized the difficulties of wanting everyone to love me and actually taking a stand around issues I believe in. When you take a stand, you're going to piss people off. I have to remember that I am doing what I am doing not to be popular but to hopefully make a difference in how trans people are represented in media and because I love my work. We have made some progress, progress that isn't perfect. (God I sound like Obama, kidding.) But I just want to stay in the love and continue to strive to tell more human transgender stories and hopefully entertain the masses in the process.

6. Do you have any thoughts about the recent LGBT bullying & suicides?

Laverne: What's been really intense for me with all the talk about bullying lately is the extent to which I haven't fully dealt with the trauma around the bullying I experienced as a child. When we live with this trauma and don't deal with it, it comes out in unexpected ways. I had a really lame suicide attempt when I was 12 years old but I have felt like I wanted to die many times over the years. I am so blessed and so grateful for my life, but it has been and continues to be extremely challenging. What gets me through is lots of therapy, lots, and having an outlet, something I am passionate about that I love to do and share with the world. It's a day at a time but when I am feeling saved, it's because of love.

TransCEND would like to thank Laverne Cox for taking the time to answer our questions and being so open. We will be featuring another High Profile Trans Celebs' thoughts very soon; so be on the look out for the next post.