Throughout the week, handmade posters with graphic descriptions of murders and pictures of hate crime victims coated bulletin boards across the Paly campus. Students noticed the slogans "Stop the Violence" and "We’ll miss you" as they rushed to class. Many questioned the motives behind these emotionally provocative images.

The Paly Gay-Straight Alliance, GSA, created the posters to raise awareness about Transgender Remembrance Day on Saturday. Held every November to honor Rita Hester, whose unsolved 1998 murder sparked the "Remembering Our Dead" Web project (http://www.gender.org/remember/day), Remembrance Day serves to commemorate the lives of gender-variant people who were subjected to violence because of prejudice.

"Many murders of transgendered people occur each year simply because of their transgender," said junior Naomi Shiffman, co-president of the GSA. "It’s not fair."

According to the Gender Education and Advocacy web site (www.gender.org), one or more people die each month due to transgender-based hate crimes. Their deaths rarely receive much media attention and often murder cases left unsolved. Remembrance Day aims to prevent these victims from being forgotten, Shiffman said.

"We’re honoring the memories of transgendered and transsexual people murdered for their sexual identity," sophomore Monte Emmer, an active GSA member, said.

Although the Gay-Straight Alliance is working to heighten awareness at Paly, many students believe there is not enough campus concern over issues like homosexuality and transgender.

"As much as we think and say we’re open, we’re not that open," senior Katie Morton said. "People shouldn’t be afraid… We need more awareness."

The club is trying to be more active this year in order to broaden students’ perceptions of the Gay-Straight Alliance and its motives.

"Our goal is to make the club more accepted and known," said junior Laura Park, a second year member.

Club members speculate that they will need more than poster campaigns in order to catch students’ attention.

"I think [Remembrance Day] could’ve been more apparent," senior Brandon Parsons said. "Some people didn’t even know it was going on."

Despite some student confusion on campus, Transgender Day of Remembrance is honoring victims of transgender-based hate crimes and raising peoples’ awareness of these crimes all over the world. A list of marches and ceremony locations is on The Gender Education and Advocacy web site, www.gender.org, along with support information for gender variant people and their families.