"We call upon the ancestors of our line, the progenitors of our queer spirits, those who came before and laid the path behind them, the mighty transgender dead." - 'Basic Trans Ancestor Elevation Ritual Prayer' by @rockemsockemrocket & @trans-rite.

For today, the Transgender Day of Remembrance, I created a small altar atop the cabinet that houses my beloved dead, for the transgender dead.

I lit the candle from my beloved dead's altar as well as a fresh black candle (I wish I had some actual Pride representation, but for now the glass prisms will have to do). I offered some hot milk with honey and a touch of turmeric, later followed by a cup of fresh water, and read the 'Basic Trans Ancestor Elevation Ritual Prayer' in its entirety.

🏳️‍⚧️Trans Day of Remembrance🏳️‍⚧️

December 19, 2025 (TDOR is November 20)

Gods on Altar: Hermes Psukhopompós and Nanaya

Offerings to Queer Ancestors, Hermes, Nanaya: Incense, water libation, money to TransLifeLine.

Vigil candle to the 59 Trans Brothers, Sisters, and Siblings on 2025 TDORs report

•Literature used:

"Basic Trans Ancestor Elevation Ritual Prayer" by @trans-rite (edited around for different sections of ritual) — Link

•Original Writing:

Adapted version of Prayer to Hermes Psūkhopompós For The Deceased — Link

Prayer to Nanaya for Trans Protection — Link

•Music (on loop, quiet but loud enough to cover up my voice from housemates):

Lacrimosa (Weeping) by Mozart — Link

Names Of Those Lost:

Hi everyone. We did our annual divination with the ancestor helping spirits on November 11th, nearly a week ago - I'm sorry for sharing these results so late.

First, we inquired with the three human ancestors we have worked with and honored for over a decade: Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and Leslie Feinberg. All three agreed that they would like to be involved again this year, and none made major requests for changes to the ritual. Marsha advised us to think bigger, beyond this one annual ritual, because we need to "fight for change," in order to "all break free." So consider bringing her into your liberation work going forward. Leslie advised us to "sow courage" by focusing on "past victory." This also points towards additional work with hir and our shared history of powerful collective struggle while doing other ritual and work in the world. Your mods already bring these ancestors in and honor them for work beyond this annual ritual - and it sounds like that's something they would like to do more of, as trans repression intensifies in many parts of the world.

For offerings, Marsha requested flowers. Sylvia was hard to decipher, she requested we have others do some backup divination to get her response. Leslie had no particular requests but we told hir we would share some yiddish poetry.

The next ancestor we called upon was a personal friend and community powerhouse who passed away a year and a half ago, Cecilia Gentili. Calling on her was painful but beautiful. She enthusiastically agreed to join the cohort of elevated bright and well ancestors to receive the newly departed dead in our ritual this year, after having been on the other side of the dynamic last year. She didn't make specific offering requests but we have some ideas if you need them.

Finally, we checked in with the Earth spirit Agdistis, whom we work with as an ancestor - you do not need to incorporate them into your own ritual, but you are welcome to bring them in if you would like. They are ready to help process the pain and trauma from the family members we have lost, which they can do by being invoked during the ritual.

Those are the results we got from our divination. We are hoping to continue to expand the court of ancestors tending the line in this ritual, little by little, and adding Cecilia is a step on that path. Feel free to incorporate your own bright and well ancestors, if they consent to participating. Thank you for joining us.

Sylvia closed out her message with "FIGHT THE POWER." Right on. ✊🏽🤍

Trans Rite of Elevation 2025

Dedicated altar space:

- bandana from a trans artist - water with ice - mocktail with coconut water and spiced apple cider vinegar - lavender honey - spiced candies - flowers - glitter bottle (gift ❤️) -

Said the suggested prayer (some extemporizing), talked to my goddesses, said hello to Marsha (more like a tiny timid wave but I felt warmth reflected back), closed my eyes and offered my hand to a loving ancestor and danced in a connected line stretching away from me and also toward me, felt the pain points on the line being held on either side.

Set a prayer in my own spell space (strawberry candle) with necklaces for gender, tenderness, grace, strength, protection, grief, recovery, and future happiness.

I wasn’t able to do as much for this year’s ritual compared to last year, but I’m glad to have participated

Offerings included water in a cup I got from attending my first drag show, a dried rose, a dried bunch of baby’s breath (that may have been from the bouquet I had gotten for tdor last year I’m not sure), and a beaded bracelet I got from my first protest

I had asked Hermes to accompany me again, and to guide those to a better after place.

When I had finished reciting the prayer, I wanted to continue what I did last year of following it with something uplifting, so I played music created by trans artists

My trans rite of elevation altar for this year. Offerings of incense, apple, and strawberry Swiss roll.

I also poured a drink for Lucifer and Ishtar. You can’t see it but it’s in the pewter dish. Said prayers to them for the healing and safety of their trans descendants, departed and living, and invoked them in the prayer itself.

We had reset the altar and put out new offerings a few days before the 20th, and when the night came around, I think we were all a little relieved that we hadn’t been trying to plan something bigger or more public for this year. Sitting around our home altar, playing AHNONI’s My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross, I felt like we were getting back to basics.

In the divination we do every year to check with our Helping Spirits, make sure they're still up for participating, and ask if there's any changes they need us to make this year, we had two main takeaways. First, that our Mighty and Beloved Dead want the Rite to fit into a larger pattern of work with the Ancestors and Descendants throughout the year. And second, that our beloved Puta Madre Cecilia Gentili is happy and excited to join the team.

We welcomed her onto the altar with red lipstick, a red candle, and a cup of nice hibiscus tequila

We also burned a homemade smoke bundle of mugwort, rosemary, and lavender, as well as this 6witch3 Palo Santo and rosemary incense.

We lit candles and poured water for the Helping Spirits, and the three of us divided all of the names of this year's newly joined ancestors and read them quietly at the same time.

We had been trying to figure out how to give each recently passed sibling individual honor and respect without having ritual that was torturous or went past the point of being honoring. This felt like a good middle point between that very drawn-out experience and something like just having the papers with the names on the altar but not speaking them aloud, so I think we'll likely keep this method moving forward.

We then offered some prayers, including our base prayer, Audre Lorde's Litany for Survival, the Manifesto of the Order of Chaeronaea, the Mourner's Kaddish, INVOCACIÓN by Ashanti Dinah Ozco Herrera, and Maya Angelou's Still I Rise.

We then put on some more upbeat music, following the message from Cecilia in @candeladestructora's divination to "stop being so serious all the time!"

So of course we said "yes ma'am" and put on the following songs:

God Bless the Child by Sylvester

Rio by Aterciopelados

In Ale Gasn by Zalmen Motek and Adrienne Cooper

Libre y Peligrosa by Plena Combativa

We are Family by Sister Sledge

We closed by using the couplet to offer all of the grief from the rite to Agdistis. We used a river stone as a focal point, which just today we went out back and buried in the earth at the base of a tree to cleanse.

As Sylvia told us during our opening divination this year, FIGHT THE POWER. ✊🏽🤍

in solidarity/mir veln zey iberlebn/en la lucha,