Oldham Council has confirmed it did not fly a Transgender Pride flag above the Civic Centre due to the ongoing conflict in Israel and Palestine.
The pink, white and blue Transgender Pride flag could be seen flying above Sale Town Hall, in Trafford, on Monday, November 20, as Trafford Council commemorated the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance.
On X, formerly Twitter, Trafford Council posted: “Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance and we have raised the Trans flag at Sale Town Hall to honour the memory of those who have lost their lives due to transphobia.”
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However, Oldham Council said it would not be flying any other flags for the time-being.
When asked by The Oldham Times, an Oldham Council spokesperson responded: “Due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, our usual flag flying policy has been suspended and we shall be flying the Peace flag until further notice, to signify Peace, Justice and Respect.
“This accompanies the Union flag, which flies at all times. No other flag will be raised at this time.”
The Transgender Day of Remembrance was started in 1999 by transgender woman Gwendolyn Smith.
In a HuffPost Contributor article published in 2012, Smith wrote that she organised the vigil after speaking with friends about Rita Hester, who was murdered in November 1998, and Chanelle Pickett, who was murdered a few years before.
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Both were transgender women of colour who lived in Massachusetts, USA. The first event was held in the Castro district of San Francisco. The day is now commemorated in many countries across the globe.
According to the Trans Murder Monitoring research project, run by Transgender Europe, a total of 321 trans and gender-diverse people were reported murdered between October 1, 2022, and September 30, 2023, across the globe, close to the 327 cases reported in the previous year.
The figures show that 94 per cent of the victims were trans women or trans feminine people, and almost three-quarters of the murders took place in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The project stated that the figures will miss murder victims who are not identified as trans or gender diverse in reports of their deaths – with Latin American and the Caribbean said to have established monitoring systems in those regions, contributing to the high proportion of murders.
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