Report back on NYC March 2019 in support of Trans Rights
On Monday, October 29th, National Women’s Liberation members protested the targeting of transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming people by the Trump administration and its Department of Health and Human Services. “Trans Liberation is Everyone’s Liberation!” was the slogan of the action, which started with a rally at Madison Square Park.
Speakers talked about the particular dangers being trans while noting that this attack is one in a series targeting women, people of color, immigrants, the disabled, workers, and queer people. More than one speaker reminded the crowd that trans youth of color make up a disproportionate number of homeless youth and that transgender women of color have a life expectancy of only 35 years. The leaked Department of Health and Human Services memo that sparked the rally would potentially deny this already vulnerable population protection under laws based on sex if its goal of redefining sex in federal law as “based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth” were accomplished.
Protesters and speakers were outraged, but upbeat. “We will not be erased!” showed up on signs and in chants. Many speakers highlighted organizations that celebrate transgender lives, such as Trans Lifeline (https://www.translifeline.org/) which provides peer support services, the NYC Trans Oral History Project (http://oralhistory.nypl.org/neighborhoods/trans-history), for which volunteers were solicited, and #ThriveOver35, a campaign, in its founder’s words, “intended to help black trans women reimagine themselves somewhere other than an open casket.”
After hearing from the first round of speakers, the crowd of several hundred marched up Sixth Avenue and into Grand Central Station. Many marchers carried “book shields” featuring works by trans and queer authors or on trans and queer topics. At Grand Central, the rally featured more testimony, including that of a transgender woman and NWL member, Natalia Mariposa. In addition to sharing some personal experiences of discrimination and harassment along with contrasting her treatment as a man with what she has experienced as a transgender woman, Natalia gave a brief history of the attempted “erasure” of “everyone and everything that does not fit into the mold of straight white male culture.” Her words, like those of many of the speakers, were another reminder that the interests of the 99% are intertwined and a reinforcement of the idea that trans liberation is not just about trans people.
October’s march and rally in support of the trans community was organized by Feminist Rapid Response Network (FRR), a newly-formed coalition of which NWL is a member. The coalition also includes such allies as International Women’s Strike, NYC for Abortion Rights, International Socialist Organization, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Socialist Alternative, Socialist Alternative, Radical Women, Left Voice, Freedom Socialist Party, and Red Bloom. FRR was born during the Kavanaugh hearings, and is intended to provide like-minded feminist groups the means to quickly organize actions. Its members believe that we must fight for each other.