The Transgender Flag is flying from Sale Town Hall to mark the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance.

The day is marked on November 20 each year to memorialize those who have been murdered as a result of transphobia.

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.”

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.

The day was also commemorated in nearby Warrington.

The area was the site of the tragic death of trans girl Brianna Ghey, who was killed aged just 16. Since then, schools across the area have taken part in fundraisers to remember her.

The day 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.

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.

Ahead of this year’s day, LGBT+ news website PinkNews approached major political parties about trans rights.

Of English parties, only the Green Party and Liberal Democrats responded to the news site, with PinkNews stating it received no response from the Conservatives or Labour.

In a statement given to PinkNews, Green party co-leader Carla Denyer said trans people are ‘currently among society’s most marginalised communities’, and stated that ‘The Green Party is clear that trans rights are human rights.’

The Liberal Democrats also released a statement today, with Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Women and Equalities Christine Jardine MP posting that she is ‘deeply concerned to see such a vulnerable group of people being dragged into a manufactured culture war.’