Three Bay Area artists celebrated National Transgender Day of Remembrance at the Hinde Auditorium Nov. 20 through various art displays and a comedic book reading.

The day of remembrance commemorates all transgender people who were murdered because of their identity, including the unsolved case of Rita Hester which led to the “Remembering Our Dead” project.

“There was a memorial in town earlier this week,” said Director of the Pride Center J’Lissabeth Faughn, “We wanted to do more of a celebration of trans-identity.”

The day of remembrance is celebrated in many states across the country and other countries as well including France, England, Canada and New Zealand.

Filmmaker Chris Vargas created the Museum of Transgender Hirstory and Art – a fictional museum meant to criticize institutions for being too narrow-minded and not open to other forms of art by queer and transgender artists.

“We at the Museum of Transgender Hirstory are committed to making our presence felt as soon as possible only to inspire every trans and gender-non-conforming artist to continue making work,” Vargas said.

One of the conceptual arts of the Museum of Transgender Hirstory was a café modeled after the Stonewall Riots in which a transgender woman threw coffee at a cop when he harassed her.

“Should a stray police officer wander into the building, coffee will be served hot,” Vargas said.

Ali Liebegott, author of “The Beautifully Worthless” and “The iHOP Papers,” read lines from “Cha-Ching!,” a story about Theo, a transgender alcoholic who fell in love with a woman while on the road to New York.

Resident hall adviser Antonio Coffee was among the handful of aspiring writers who were intrigued by Liebegott’s reading, asking her questions about her craft.

“Hearing the author’s take on different sexes, it was really understanding.” Coffee said.

Liebegott responded to inquiries about her implementation of humor as a way to keep her novels from being too harsh to read.

“It’s always mixed in because the humor kind of helps balance because I often write about tough issues,” Liebegott said.

When asked about the significance of drag queens to the LGBTQ community moderator Beth Pickens said it was an recognizable art.

“Many queer artists and queer scholars understand drag as the queer community’s folk art,” Pickens said. “It’s something that’s historically entrenched in building identities and fermenting community and activism.”

Pickens said transgender people were not recognized by the LGBTQ community until recently.

“Only in the past 10 to 15 years was there really a lot of public scholarship, programming, debate and understanding of this continuum of identity,” Pickens said.

Liebegott also began a debate about queer and transgender roles in television that were also discussed in movies and shows, such as Silence of the Lambs, White Chicks and Star Trek.

“One of the things I noticed is that every TV show has some gay character. I feel like they’re covering it in as a way to get credit,” Liebegott said.

Following a random giveaway of books, shirts and sweaters, Faughn said she was pleased with the quality of the program and hopes people enjoyed their time.

“If just one person gets a new idea, that’s what makes these programs count,” Faughn said.