Over 150 people gathered at Capitol Hill’s Seattle Central College Saturday afternoon for a trans right rally and march on Broadway.
The effort came amid the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services plans for changing federal civil-rights law to include a definition of sex as “a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth.”
Mac McGregor, trans advocate and a past Seattle City Council candidate, spoke to the crowd and acknowledged the morning’s attack on the Jewish members of Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and called for solidarity with those who face oppression.
“We have to stand arm in arm and remember we are all connected,” McGregor said. “We are all human beings who contribute to our communities and society.”
Trans rights activists move North on Broadway while protesting Trumps attempted redefinition of gender. Names of trans people murdered are spoken aloud. @jseattle pic.twitter.com/3NAd9XFPWA
— Alex Garland (@AGarlandPhoto) October 27, 2018
Before the rally marched down Broadway and back up 12th via John, Tobi Hill-Meyer, one of the founders and current board members with the Gender Justice League, told CHS the rally was “an opportunity for us to come together, because we need to be together to support each other and have strength to fight this.”
“We’re here to be seen and send a message,” Hill-Meyer said. Earlier this month, CHS reported on the search for a new leader at the Capitol Hill nonprofit as founder and longtime director Danni Askini has stepped down and is seeking permanent resident status in Sweden while faced with a fight with the State Department over her immigration status.
Saturday’s rally was organized by the Party for Socialism and Liberation and members who identify as LGBTQIA. One member of PSL, Michelle, said they are scared, but they have to fight back, “Whenever the far-right launches a new crusade against LGBTQ community, the movement grows stronger. The damage done by their policies is very real, but we are not going away. We will not be erased.”
PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.
Hammer and sickle? That’s nice.