Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

The Researchers Investigating Missing, Murdered, Unclaimed, and Unidentified Trans and Queer Neighbors Around the World

Hidden behind every name is a story – one that likely encompasses much joy as well as what tragically happened to them at the end. I think we have a responsibility to tell those stories where we can, and dragging the horror of what happened to them into the light is part of that. We really shouldn’t shy away from it.

Recently, we launched a mini-series exploring the work of tracking and reporting anti-trans violence. You can read the initial post The Researchers: A Closer Look at the Search for Missing and Murdered Trans and Queer People

I created a Q&A for multiple people involved in this work. I’ve learned so much from them. Also, I realize how most people don’t actually realize what does into this work, in terms of time, resources, emotional labor, and determination.

You can read about the tools at the link above. Here, we want you to read what the researchers themselves have to say.

I work with most of these folx through the Facebook Trans Violence Group. I am grateful for their time and energy to help my readers better understand this complex and difficult work. That being said, please note that I do not necessarily agree with everything they say.

 I met Anna-Jayne through the Facebook. Her experience, guidance, and accessibility were important resources for my own work. I’m in awe of her. Her leadership and vision have changed the world.

Your Name: Anna-Jayne Metcalfe

Your Pronouns she/her

Affilation(s)  I’m not involved with any national organisations, but here in Bournemouth (a fairly large and cosmopolitan town on the south coast of the United Kingdom) I’m a member of two community organisations:

• Inclusive Community Church (https://www.inclusive.church – a Metropolitan Community Church fellowship founded in 1979)
• Communi-T (https://www.facebook.com/CommuniTPublicpage/  – a local trans and nonbinary social group).

How do you describe your identity?

My gender identity is a pretty uncomplicated binary female one, but within that there are many nuances. It’s probably easiest to say that I’m a pansexual polyamorous trans woman, but even that hides a mass of complexity as even though I’ve never been diagnosed I’m also pretty sure I’m not neurotypical.

Outside of gender and sexuality I’d also have to say that I consider myself to also be something of a science and technology advocate. In my day job I’m a C++ software engineer, but my interests are far, far wider than that.

Please describe your specific involvement in finding and honoring murdered, missing, and unclaimed trans and queer people. 

The short version is that I try to help locate, collate and share information about them and what happened to them so that others can remember.

The long version is that so much of our history is all too easily lost to our community, and when we lose someone to violence (in its many forms), usually all our community learns of them is just what we stumble on via social or news media – or perhaps a name, a date and a place on a Trans Day of Remembrance memorial list.

Unless the media sympathetically picks up on a case (which they do now far more than they used to, which is at least something) there is often no information about who that person really was.

I try to do my bit to mitigate that by helping to research, collate and share information about cases of fatal violence (in its many forms) against trans, nonbinary and gender nonconforming people.

As part of that I run a website (https://tdor.translivesmatter.info) which attempts to share the stories of many of those we lose so that others can learn about them as more than just a name, a date and a place.

Although the site is not affiliated to any organisation the name of the site – Remembering Our Dead – is a direct tribute to the work of Gwendolyn Anne Smith, the founder of the Trans Day of Remembrance movement.

I don’t claim that the information the site gives is anywhere near definitive, or the only place where TDoR resources can be found – just that it is there to try to help others to remember those we have lost, and to provide resources for anyone organising vigils and events with the same aim.

Behind the site is a lot of unseen activity. When I find news reports and any other relevant links I take copious notes, and these are backed up to a GitHub repository (https://github.com/annajayne/tdor-research) in the hope that nothing is lost.

These notes can then be used to draft a memorial page for the victim on https://tdor.translivesmatter.info. Alongside what happened to them I (and any other editors who are helping out) try to include any details we can find which may help others to connect with their memory where possible – a quote here, a bit of poetry there, and so on – but sadly that isn’t possible for every page.

The site can then in turn be used to generate resources such as memorial cards for TDoR vigils.

The background to how I ended up doing this is a bit of a long story, but in essence:

To set the stage, it is necessary to know that my church (https://inclusive.church ) ministers primarily to, and is led by, LGBT+ people.  Our pastor is strongly supportive of trans people and our church is keenly aware of how much hate is being stirred up by government and mainstream media about us. I’ve had nothing but support from them, and they always have encouraged me. It’s really humbling.

In October 2016, the church (then named Metropolitan Community Church of Bournemouth) hosted a meeting of local community groups with a view to organising a TDoR vigil in the centre of town the following month.

I unexpectedly started myself down this path when, at that initial meeting, I volunteered to try to find photos of victims so that we could print memorial cards (originally our pastor’s idea).

I wrote about what happened in some detail in the blogpost “Remembering Our Dead Never Gets Any Easier” (https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/blog/2017/11/16/remembering-our-dead-never-gets-any-easier_580bd388 ). Be warned that it’s a hard read. Be prepared for tears.

That effort ultimately led to the creation of the tdor.translivesmatter.info website in 2018. I wrote about that specifically in the blogpost “TDoR: Learning more about those we have lost” (https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/blog/2018/09/07/tdor-learning-more-about-those-we-have-lost_c3e16fa9).

Hence for me, what started out as helping out with a single TDoR vigil in a single town on the south coast of the United Kingdom gradually became a major volunteer activity.

It’s an emotionally fraught, difficult thing to do which sometimes reduces me to floods of tears and inevitably results in criticism, but I keep going because not only do I seem to be able to cope, but because I know it is such an important thing to do. Every time someone writes to me to tell me about someone they have lost to violence or suicide it reminds me how important it is that some of us do this. 

What geographic region(s) do you cover? Why? 

The scope of the site is worldwide as violence against trans and nonbinary people really does not respect borders. Given the volume of reports which originate in Latin America and the USA it makes sense to focus most efforts there, however.

As such, I’ve become reasonably good at identifying cases in the areas where I specialise but with my time and emotional energy being limited, I have to rely on others to identify cases elsewhere.

Why is this work important? 

I feel that it is massively important because so much of our history is lost, and so many of our people forgotten when they deserve to be remembered.

While some may wish to gloss over what happened to those we have lost, I believe that we should not shy away from it.

To me, it is important that we face up to the full horror of violence (in its many, many forms) and expose it to the scrutiny of the light of day. It’s probably a long shot, but perhaps doing so may one day help contribute to a reduction in that violence against trans people, and more empathy towards us by the authorities and those others who (quite frankly) are not helping at all right now.

What are some of the challenges you face in your efforts? 

The biggest challenge by far is the emotional toll being exposed to this sort of information on a regular basis can take. It wears you down gradually until you find yourself breaking and have to step back for the sake of your own mental wellbeing.

I have found myself needing to do just that several times, but fortunately I’ve always been able to step forward again after a week or two. That said, I must face the fact that one day however I may not be able to, and that then someone else will have to take over from me. Given how few of us seem able to cope with being exposed to all of this, that’s a major issue.

The second major challenge is the sheer volume of data which needs to be continuously sifted through to identify relevant information, and the time it takes. It really is never-ending, and I regularly find myself triaging several hundred news reports in multiple languages to identify new cases – or indeed updates to ones we already know about. The latter, can of course provide closure of a sort – every so often in those news reports I find accounts of suspects being tried and sentenced for the murders of trans people.

Cross-cultural issues can also be a huge challenge, as writing about the environment a trans person lived and died in when you have never experienced it brings with it a unique set of challenges and responsibilities. I try to be as responsible and sensitive as I can, but inevitably I get things wrong sometimes – and when that happens it is important to learn from the experience. Understanding how to effectively use translation engines – while recognising that they can often make subtle changes to the text – is part of that, but there is really no substitute for lived experience and firsthand knowledge of the language in question.

Fragmentation in media also poses its own challenges – important details of a case can pop up anywhere (e.g. traditional media as well as social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Mastodon, YouTube or TikTok) and you honestly can’t look everywhere without this turning into a full-time activity.

There are also big gaps in the information that is reported – notably from countries which are so hostile that very few LGBT+ people dare talk about their lived experiences or openly mourn the friends they have lost.

Tell us about the aspects of this work that the typical person may not understand or see. 

Most people see only the website but to even make it possible I’ve had to learn a whole new set of skills, tools and techniques (technical, social and cultural).

Most obviously, the site needs to be written, hosted and maintained. I’m fortunately in a position to be able to take care of all of that (I’m acutely aware of how much of a privilege that is!), but it does mean that the site is entirely dependent on my involvement and wellbeing at the moment.

Sooner or later, that will need to be addressed, and a contingency plan formulated.

Beyond the site, most of the hidden activity relates to case research, data handling and archiving.

For case research, I use Google Alerts RSS feeds (https://www.google.co.uk/alerts) and Feeder (https://feeder.co/). Any pages which come up in my alerts can then be triaged and notes taken as appropriate. I honestly spend more time on this than anything else, as the pace of reports (and false positives, as keyword alerts can be very broad) is quite overbearing.

Then there is managing and backing up the notes and data itself.

Over time I’ve learnt many tricks and techniques to make all this practical. I can elaborate about all of that to anyone who wants to know more, but it’s probably too detailed to talk about here.

How do you balance the privacy of a grieving family with the needs of the trans and queer communities? 

With care, basically – although we can never be perfect, we should always be sensitive. In practice that means being open to quickly updating or correcting pages if new information comes to light (no matter how) or a friend or family member contacts me.

There are times however when whatever you do, you will be wrong – and any of us who research in this area must be ready for that. The most obvious cases are where the birth family and friends of a deceased trans or nonbinary person have conflicting wishes, but it can be much more complex than that. Sensitivity, a thick skin and the ability to realise you made the wrong call and change course are all an advantage here.

We speak often about the need to educate the media, law enforcement, and the criminal justice system about anti-trans violence. What institutions would you add to that list and why? 

Politicians and governments are one obvious group as they have the power to make our lives so much worse through sheer ignorance even when harm is not directly intended. The next obvious groups are health and educational professionals, as their actions intersect with all of our lives in one way or another.

In recent years I can’t think of any trans folks I know who’ve not been upset about or hurt by the actions of one or both of these groups, and I’m definitely one of them.

What do you say to the person who hesitates to share each post/flyer because it is ‘too sad.’ 

Hidden behind every name is a story – one that likely encompasses much joy as well as what tragically happened to them at the end.

I think we have a responsibility to tell those stories where we can, and dragging the horror of what happened to them into the light is part of that. We really shouldn’t shy away from it.

Please list any organizations or groups doing this work that people should know about.

There are far too many to list, but three I think are especially worth knowing about are:

– Trans Violence News (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1570448163283501/) is one of the places where volunteers share information about those we have lost and try to raise awareness about what happened to them.

If you see a news article about a trans murder victim, there is a good chance the information on the case was disseminated in a community space like this well before the worldwide media learned about it. There are many such spaces worldwide, and I mention this one as just an example.

– Transgender Europe (https://transrespect.org/en/research/tmm/). TGEU is the organisation which produces the “official” TDoR in conjunction with trans groups worldwide. They started doing this in 2009, and had they not done so there are many names we would never have known.

– The Trans Doe Task Force (https://transdoetaskforce.org/) is a US based group which researches cases of LGBTQ+ missing and murdered persons, especially focusing on unidentified individuals who may have been transgender.

What else should I have asked?

That’s a tough question.

Aside from finding time to do everything that I feel needs doing (which I never can, because the tide of horror never ceases) for me the hardest things are balancing correctness, care and the wishes of others.

You can never get it right – only try to do your best and hope that other people will try to understand just how hard this all is to do.

Having a brain which is strongly biased towards starting things but not quite finishing them (I’m pretty sure I’m not neurotypical, but I’ve never been diagnosed) just adds to the challenge. I’m not quite at Douglas Adams levels of procrastination when it comes to task management, but sometimes it feels a bit like it.

Where can readers follow you on social media?

I’ve been on Twitter (https://x.com/annajayne ) since 2008 but due to the platform’s lurch to the right I don’t use it much anymore so mostly lurk there.

More hopefully, I’m also available on Mastodon (https://mastodon.social/@annajayne), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/caffeinedrivendevelopment/) and to a lesser extent Threads (https://www.threads.net/@caffeinedrivendevelopment). I keep my Facebook account for friends, so I won’t share that here.

Finally, please list the social media accounts readers can follow to remain informed and share information.

As far as the site is concerned, the Twitter (for now) account is @tdorinfo (https://twitter.com/tdorinfo).

I’d like to set up mirror/alternate accounts on other platforms but given other commitments and the trickiness of syncing posts I’ve not been able to find the time to run other accounts as well – especially around October/November, when things get extraordinarily busy as we prepare for the Trans Day of Remembrance on 20th November.

Help would be welcome on that front, and on any others – i.e. not only working on cases etc. but also on backend tasks like developing the code behind the site.

Is there anything else you’d like to add? 

Two things I think. The first is a big thank you to anyone who has ever written to me to tell me about a trans or nonbinary person we have lost.

The other is a call out to others to help in any way they can. So much of the information shared at TDoR is identified and collated by sufficiently few people and groups what when anyone steps back there is a noticeable drop in what we know.

It’s tough, unrelenting and emotionally exhausting work and all of us are volunteers. The more people who feel able to help out, the less likely any one of us will burn out.

With that in mind, I think it’s important that we all have some way of escaping and finding some peace from the unrelenting bad news the surrounds us. I’d encourage everyone to do this, but for trans people it feels particularly important right now.

Outside church, my other escape is yoga – and specifically aerial yoga, which has become my refuge from basically everything that I find stressful or traumatic. Like my church, I’ve found my local yoga studio to be an affirming, inclusive and encouraging space.

As such I can recommend yoga as a way to find a little bit of peace, but please just do something (anything really!) that works for you.

We all need a way to find that peace, sometimes.

Thank you. 

You’re very welcome. Although it’s very, very hard to keep going at times it is a privilege to be a part of something so important.

Thank you, Anna-Jayne.

Other posts in this series in chronological order

• : A Closer Look at the Search for Missing and Murdered Trans and Queer People
• Read #TheResearchers Q&A With Noah ‘The Stigma Fighter’
• Read #TheResearchers Q&A With Arielle Rebekah
• A Must Read Q&A with Mal Fox #TheResearchers
• Read This Q&A with Gordy Carmona #TheResearchers
• Read This Q&A with Kris T. #TheResearchers

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