The day honours the memory of those killed because of anti-transgender violence.
The annual vigil began after the 1998 murder of Rita Hester, a black transgender woman, in Boston.
It remains unsolved.
In the United States, in 2017 alone, 27 people who were transgender or gender non-conforming were killed by hate violence, National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs reports show.
Stats NZ doesn't currently have figures on how many people are transgender in New Zealand, but the Youth'12 health and wellbeing survey of 8500 New Zealand secondary school students in 2012 showed about four out of every 100 students were either transgender (1.2 per cent) or were not sure of the gender (2.5 per cent).
Nearly one in five had experienced bullying on a weekly basis, nearly five times higher than others who were not transgender and more than half of transgender students were afraid someone at school would hurt or bother them.
One in five had attempted suicide in the past year.
These statistics show exactly why transgender pride events are needed, in Kaspara Chaise's view.
Chaise, who is a transgender man, is organising Trans Pride in the Park to "celebrate ourselves and our resilience in the face of all the s*** that we have to deal with".
He has experienced prejudice in the workplace in the past but feels accepted in his current job and Tauranga is starting "to feel like home" after 1.5 years living here.
Chaise hoped the event would help others feel that way too, in "a space for all of us to be together".
"Tauranga has a private trans support group but this is the first trans, public event," he said.
"I feel very lucky that I am in a place in the world where we can do this without too much risk of overt violence ... Not to say that transphobia isn't around."
He said the event was "specifically created for trans people, by trans people".
"We are centring our narrative for once because we live in a world where usually we are marginalised."
Trans Pride in the Park
When: 12pm - 4pm, November 21
Where: Yatton Park, bring a rug to sit on
Who: Any supporter of transgender pride is welcome
