Transgenderites are organizing themselves into activists determined to protect their civil rights. They gathered yesterday in Washington for their annual "remembering our dead" ceremony, to commemorate transgender violence victims.

This emerging movement is a marked departure for a little-understood group that has long hovered in the shadows, largely ignored until a few years ago by even the gay rights campaigns.

For the first time, transgender people have a clear agenda: They are no longer going to deny who they are, they said. And they will not be denied their basic civil rights.

There is now a national organization, the National Center for Transgender Equality, headquartered in Washington to assist them.

"Transgender" is an umbrella term to describe people who do not conform to traditional notions of gender identity, appearance and expression. Within the group are heterosexual cross-dressers, men who identify as women, women who believe they really should have been born men. Some simply appear as the other gender; others may take hormones to obtain some of the desired characteristics; still others have surgery.

The organization will be lobbying for "health and social programs and legal protections against discrimination in employment and housing." If you'd like to learn more about transgender issues, visit here. For a list of transgender advocacy groups, go here.