Content warning: This article includes mentions of discrimination and violence against trans minorities, as well as mental health and suicide. 

Special guest Iowa Senator Herman Quirmbach, who represents Iowa Senate District 25, spoke at a Trans Remembrance Day presentation Thursday at the Memorial Union.

Iowa State students from Progressive Victory and The Coalition for University Equity (CUE) joined Quirmbach in a presentation titled “Trans Remembrance and Iowa,” recognizing transgender people who have lost their lives.

“This is a sad day to think of the people who have been lost, some as results of direct violence, some as a result of…other stresses that caused them to take their own lives,” Quirmbach said. “These are people who are human beings, and who are valuable members of their families and of their communities. They have friends and neighbors and relatives, and are no longer with us.”

Progressive Victory and CUE collaborated for this presentation, discussing topics like the origins of Trans Remembrance Day, Iowa’s history of civil rights and statistics outlining the effects of discrimination and violence towards transgender individuals. 

Progressive Victory is a student organization here on campus at Iowa State, affiliated with the national organization with the same name. It is a club seeking to further civic education and democratic participation through non-partisan action. 

CUE is a non-recognized student advocacy group based in Ames. They organize protests, form petitions and engage in activism in Ames, typically based around topics of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).

The origins of Trans Day of Remembrance goes back to the 1998 unsolved murder of Rita Hester, a transgender woman. After her death, Hester was dead-named in the news, prompting transgender people and allies to march in protest. 

The following year, Gwendolyn Ann Smith founded Trans Day of Remembrance.

Since then, Trans Day of Remembrance continues internationally and is observed to memorialize those who have lost their lives to transphobia. 

Attendees of the event gave a moment of silence to pay respects for trans friends, neighbors and families who continue to face these issues. 

Two famous trans activists were honored at the seminar and thanked for their contributions: Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, prominent transwomen activists in New York City in 1970. 

These women founded STARs: Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries, providing food, shelter and community for young transgender people living on the streets of New York City. They continued activism throughout their lives, helping repeal anti-trans laws in 1970s New York City. 

Local transgender Iowans were also commemorated at the event, cases that hit very close to home.

Kedarie Johnson, a gender-fluid teen in Burlington, Iowa, was brutally kidnapped, assaulted and murdered in 2016. 

Despite prosecution for the murder, no federal hate crime charges were filed, regardless of mounting evidence. Her murder highlights the lack of prosecution in transgender hate crime cases, especially against trans people of color. 

Miles Phipps, a transgender 15-year-old from Urbandale, Iowa, was also memorialized. Phipps ended his life after years of bullying from students at school and his extracurricular activities. He even faced discrimination from teachers — his family reported that a substitute teacher had made transphobic comments directed at Phipps the day before he took his life.

According to a mental health survey conducted in 2024 by The Trevor Project, 39% of LGBTQ+ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, including almost half of transgender and nonbinary youth. 

This survey recorded that 90% of LGBTQIA+ youth said their well-being was negatively impacted due to recent politics. 

CUE member Alexis Newport, a graduate student in teaching English as a second language and applied linguistics, commented on the recent rollback of DEI legislation protecting trans and queer individuals in Iowa.

“It’s important now more than ever to honor the trans Iowans who in the past fought for these rights,” Newport said. “Though they might not still be in place, their efforts are appreciated and still remembered.” 

Quirmbach, who has been active in Iowa politics since the early 2000s, reflected on Iowa’s history of leading the country in civil rights, especially for LGBTQIA+ people. 

“In 2007, the Iowa legislature added sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes on which discrimination is forbidden in employment, public accommodation, education and other areas,” Quirmbach said. “One of the proudest votes I ever casted in Iowa Senate.”

This proud moment juxtaposed with his feelings on Iowa Senate File 418, which removes gender identity as a protected class from the Iowa Civil Rights Act.

“That day we did lose the battle and that ugly, hateful bill did pass,” Quirmbach said. “Personally, the worst day I’ve ever spent in Iowa legislature.” 

Quirmbach posed a question for Iowans to ponder regarding transgender rights.

“The question comes down to this: are we to deny basic human rights to housing, education, employment and medical care to a group of our Iowa natives on the flimsy excuse that they fail to conform to the ever-fluid gender expectations of our ever-changing culture?” Quirmbach said.