A mother’s tribute to her trans child becomes a plea for a kinder Pennsylvania

“Auggie wanted to make changes in the world,” Amy Santiago said Tuesday, standing in the East Wing rotunda of the Capitol building in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. “He made people feel like they belonged. He built people up, always. He’s such a special person.”Santiago is the mother of Auggie Santiago, a junior at Troy Area High School who’d been struggling with mental health issues during their gender transition, according to a report by the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. Auggie died by suicide on October 16, just two months before they were scheduled to start therapy, which the family had struggled to find in their area of Bradford County.“Auggie was also just beginning to come out as a trans person,” Santiago added. “Online, he had a community of friends and supporters who knew her as Cass. Thank you for loving her. We didn’t get to know her yet.”Santiago spoke at a vigil Tuesday at the Capitol honoring 55 transgender people whose deaths from violence or suicide were documented over the last year in the United States. Four of them, including Auggie, were from Pennsylvania.Related: Pennsylvania lawmakers advance LGBTQ+ protections despite GOP objections Amy Santiago, a mother of transgender child who recently died by suicide, speaks at the Harrisburg vigil on Tuesday.courtesy WGAL-8 NewsThe vigil comes just ahead of Transgender Awareness Week, observed Nov. 13-19, followed by Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20. Transgender Day of Remembrance was founded in 1999 by activist Gwendolyn Ann Smith as a vigil to honor Rita Hester, a Black transgender woman who was murdered in Massachusetts in 1998. Transgender Awareness Week was later added to help raise visibility of trans people and their accomplishments in the week leading up to the remembrance.The actual number of trans people nationwide who’ve died from violence or suicide is likely much higher, said Ashleigh Strange, executive director of the Governor’s Advisory Commission on LGBTQ Aff