The city of Atlanta will host a vigil Wednesday night to honor transgender people killed this year, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The names of the reported 22 transgender and gender non-conforming people who have been killed in 2019 will be read at the Transgender Day of Remembrance Vigil, according to the AJC. 

While none of the victims lived in Georgia, 68% lived in the South, according to a Human Rights Campaign annual report. The annual report also stated 91% of the victims were Black women and 81% were younger than 30 years old.

The event, which is hosted by the City of Atlanta LGBTQ Affairs Office, will be held at the Atlanta City Hall Atrium. Guest speakers from Georgia’s local ACLU chapter, Georgia Equality and the Trans Housing Atlanta Program are scheduled to attend.

Atlanta’s event this year will be held in conjunction with Transgender Awareness Week and the Transgender Day of Remembrance, CNN reported.

Transgender Awareness Week takes place every year between November 13 and 19. November 20 is the day of remembrance. 

These events started in the late 1990s after the violent death of Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was murdered in Boston in 1998. The person responsible was never found, CNN noted.

Transgender advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith started the Transgender Day of Remembrance in 1999 to honor Hester and other victims, according to CNN. 

The American Medical Association (AMA) recently declared the killing of transgender people an epidemic, Blavity reported in October.

In response, the AMA plans to push for the creation of a nationwide database that will properly identify the sex and gender of homicide victims and for the establishment of proper police protocol regarding their encounters with trans individuals. 

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