This week is Transgender Awareness Week. The week is a chance to uplift the voices of transgender people and raise awareness of their hardships and accomplishments. This week leads up to the Trans Day of Remembrance.

“The Trans Day of Remembrance is an annual vigil honoring and remembering the countless lives of Black and Brown trans women lost across this country this year. This year alone, 46 trans people, primarily Black and Latina trans women, have been murdered by cisgender individuals simply for being trans. It is beyond time that this ends and that we build a society in which all Black lives matter. Join us as we grieve and as we celebrate the beauty and power of trans people,” said Dr. Alithia Zamantakis, director of the Pride Center.

Shippensburg University will observed Trans Day of Remembrance on Saturday 20 from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. on the Quad. Please join and pay respects to those lost.

In honor of this day, I would like to share a poem I wrote.

The Moon is Trans

The moon is trans

In French she is La Lune

The wisest of all the stars

Pulling the sun along her wake

She watches as beast devours man

To become man when day should break

She is the sister of reason

Laughing into the howling night.

In German he is Der Mond

Whispering love to the world below

The brother of lyrical form

He brings the tides of futures

Oh, Mond, tell us the morning

Sun will shine in

Brilliant, sweltering hues.

In Spanish she is La Luna

The rising mother of the night

Bearing witness to man’s delight

Our pleasure, pain

The crime, the malice, the mall

Refrain between

Light and light.

In English he is Moon

The father of bards

Who seduces

With gentle smile

And kindling words

Loving the world before

The sun can take his place

And blind his love

With her dazzling gaze.

The moon is trans.