“A lot of trans women, especially trans women of color, don’t feel safe,” she said of her inspiration for the sign. “I wanted to show examples of what being able to have the tools to defend ourselves looks like.”
The diversity of perspectives and voices on display demonstrated the breadth of issues affecting young trans people in 2021, according to those who spoke at the rally. Speakers Qween Jean, Joela Rivera, Lafi Melo, Anesu Nyatanga, Shéár Avory, and Schuyler Bailar addressed a wide spectrum of subjects in their speeches, whether it was abolition, gentrification, or Palestinian liberation, but they claimed that each issue was connected in the intersectional fight for trans liberation.
“Our struggles are each unique but they are undeniably connected, by state violence, white supremacy, colonialism, and injustice,” Melo, a Palestinian artist and activist draped in a keffiyeh.
The rally formally began by honoring the lives of the 27 trans Americans who have lost their lives to violence in 2021, which is on track to set a new yearly record for deadly anti-trans violence. That tribute was personal to many speakers and protestors. Qween Jean, co-founder of the Stonewall Marches, said the weekly demonstration in front of Stonewall Inn was directly inspired by the call for trans survival that came out of last year’s Brooklyn Liberation.
“Things cannot resume because there’s still an ongoing crisis that affects transgender people, in particular Black trans femmes,” she said, referencing the so-called “return to normal” following the pandemic.” “The rate of violence, the rate of HIV infection is something that we cannot be comfortable with.”
When Jean took the stage with Rivera, the organizer with whom she co-founded the Stonewall Protests, they were greeted with raucous cheers, then silence as people listened to them speak on the myriad crises facing the trans community. Rivera addressed the 10 p.m. “curfew” imposed upon Manhattan’s Washington Square Park by the New York Police Department (NYPD) at the beginning of June, leading to 23 people being arrested during the first week of Pride month.
“NYPD put a curfew on the park because the people who call that park home were making gentrifiers feel uncomfortable and unsafe,” she said. “If you don’t want people living in a park, give them housing. Many of the people living in that park are still suffering from the war on drugs, offer them resources.”
