Speakers stood on the ledge of the Brooklyn Museum and spoke passionately to the crowd.
“Today is the last day that a Black trans woman fears for her life when she… claims herself in front of a man whose hatred of himself is stronger than his love for her,” proclaimed Fields Stewart, founder of The Okra Project. “Today is the last day that a Black trans man fears occupying physical space because he can’t find his binder or is without it.”
“Today is the last day that Black nonbinary people feel forced to fit themselves into a binary that doesn’t exist,” she added. “Today is the last day that cis people use trans people as an encyclopedia when Google is right there.”
Speaker Ceyenne Doroshow also announced that the event helped her organization, Gays and Lesbians in a Transgender Society (G.L.I.T.S.), raise $1 million to build housing for Black trans people. “Babies, I love you,” she told the crowd. “I want you to breathe and sustain. I want you to stand tall and proud and Black and live.”
The list of this year’s speakers has not yet been released, but Cruz says the organizers are working to make the event as accessible as possible. It will be livestreamed for those who do not feel safe attending due to the pandemic, and there will also be ASL speakers and Spanish translators. The team is also asking all attendees to wear masks to ensure everyone feels safe and comfortable.
For those interested in receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, there will also be a vaccine bus present.
Last year’s event was planned to protest violence against Black trans people, specifically the deaths of Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells, Riah Milton, and Tony McDade. This year’s protest will center both Black trans lives as well as the lives of trans youth.
“We’re really trying to center trans youth as much as possible and the legislative attacks that are really coming hard across this country,” Cruz says. “We do not believe there’s enough attention to the ongoing attacks against trans youth, but also the epidemic of violence against trans women of color, particularly Black trans women.”
Unfortunately, 2021 is on track to set a new record for fatal violence against trans and gender nonconforming people. According to Human Rights Campaign (HRC), at least 28 transgender people have lost their lives to violence so far this year, and the majority were trans women of color. This year has already seen more homicides than all of 2019 and is likely to surpass 2020, when 44 victims were killed.
Like last year, Brooklyn Liberation organizers have asked attendees to wear white as a nod to a 1917 NAACP protest, in which approximately 10,000 people marched against anti-Black violence. It is impossible to predict how many people will attend, Cruz says, but no matter what, he believes it is important to rise up.
“We know it’s going to be a powerful event if 100 people come or if 50,000 people come,” he says.
Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for them.’s weekly newsletter here.
