So far in 2012, 265 transgender people have been murdered worldwide and the brutality of their deaths is detailed in a video released Tuesday (20 November) which is Transgender Day of Remembrance.

The video, from the Gay Alliance Against Defamation, contains descriptions of the murders, many which are repeated stabbings or shootings. Some victims were tortured, others burned, at least one was dragged and some were maimed – just because they were different.

‘They did nothing wrong,’ the video states. ‘They were transgender.’

The Transgender Day of Remembrance was started by transgender advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith as a vigil to honor the memory of Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was killed in 1998. The vigil commemorated all the transgender people lost to violence that year and began the annual event.

‘We needed some way to come together and mourn collectively and remember those that we’ve lost,’ Mason Davis, executive director of the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco says in the video. ‘It’s also become a day where we think about what the world should look like and hope for a day when we no longer have to lose so many people each year.’

Davis adds: ‘Unfortunately, every year it seems like every month we are hearing about somebody we’ve lost in California, in the United States, people we’ve lost internationally. It’s an important day to remember who we are as transgender people and remember those we have lost due to hate violence.’

Below is the video and here is a list of people who died because of anti-transgender violence in 2012.