Thousands of LGBTQ people and their allies descended on Franklin Park Saturday for the second annual Trans-Resistance march and rally to honor trans women and men, and recognize the disproportionate discrimination and violence they face.
The pink and blue colors of the trans-community were emblazoned on clothing of every sort and on flags flapping in the wind from the performance stage.
Saturday’s event was also intended to serve as a rebuke to Boston Pride, a well-funded non-profit that represents the interest of LGBTQ communities. Trans Resistance organizers said Pride, a mainly white organization whose executive director resigned last week, has overlooked issues of racism and sexism within its ranks and failed to adequately include Black and brown trans people in the annual Boston Pride parade, dinners and other gatherings.
Speaking from the stage, Chastity Bowick, director of Transgender Emergency Fund, said Boston Pride had ignored their pleas over many years for inclusion. Bowick said Black and brown transgender people can no longer be ignored, but she also gently admonished the crowd to take on more of the burden of assisting trans communities and for those communities to help themselves.
“We need to start showing up at the State House and figure out your local representative what does he stand for," Bowick said. "Does he stand for you? Because if they don’t then they need to get out of office.”
The Trans Resistance March and Vigil was organized last June after Boston Pride’s board of directors declined to support Black Lives Matter, among other issues. Tre’Andre Valentine, executive director of an advocacy organization called the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, said Pride’s failure to acknowledge racism as “a pressing issue among LGBTQ communities” and within its own ranks made him angry. “These are political issues and to pretend that they are not makes no sense,” he said. He said the goal of Trans Resistance is “to have an inclusive Pride.”
Leaders of Boston Pride were not immediately available for comment.
Sitting alone on the grass, Johanna Ediger, a software engineer in Boston who describes herself as a privileged transgender lesbian said she was happy to see the solidarity among people at the vigil. “All the white queers showing up to support the trans-queers, all the straight people showing up and cis people of all races showing up to support the trans queers ... seeing everyone showing up is great.”
Participants marched from Nubian Square to Franklin Park and gathered supporters along the way in Boston’s mainly Black community. Valentine sat in the back of a pickup truck cruising along Blue Hill Avenue, and bellowed though a bull horn the names of transwomen of color murdered over the past year, including 42-year old Jahaira DeAlto Balenciaga who was stabbed to death in Dorchester on May 2 by someone she knew. It is not clear whether the motive was transphobia, but Valentine said even if it was not in this case, violence against trans women of color is at an “epidemic stage.”
GLAAD, the legal organization representing the LGBTQ community, estimates that more than 30 trans women have been murdered in 2021 alone.
A man named DJ Rock fanning himself with a trans colored fan said that the “backlash” to trans rights in the country was coming from “a frightened minority.” He said he felt confident that the wind was blowing in the direction of civil rights for trans people nationwide, and Saturday’s diverse, well attended rally was one indication. “I think it’s a loud minority that represent the backlash. It’s people with power but I don’t think its symbolic of a larger societal shift.”
Joining the crowd was Rep. Ayanna Pressley, who earlier had issued a statement acknowledging Massachusetts as the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. Nevertheless, Pressley said, “trans and queer folks — especially Black transgender women — still face discrimination, persecution, and violence in our communities."
The Trans resistance vigil was punctuated with singing and poetry from the stage. At one point hundreds jumped to their feet to the popular tune by Sister Sledge that has become a virtual anthem for gay rights, “We are Family.” Bowick, now in her 30’s, told the audience that she became estranged from her own family at age 15 and that the thousands at the rally had become the family she had never known.
Correction: This story has been updated to correct the wording of a quote from Rep. Pressley.
