Chicago: Trans Liberation Protest Against Trump’s Overturning of School Protections

March 9, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

From a reader:

The Trans Liberation protest on Friday, March 3, in downtown Chicago was powerful, moving, and thought-provoking. I’d say a good 1,500 people showed up in the freezing dark night. “It was lit!” The Facebook event page for the action said: “We will be protesting the overturned school protections for trans students across this nation and fighting for trans liberation. We will chant for Keke Collier who was killed just this week on Chicago soil, the 4th known killing of a trans person this year! NOT ONE MORE.”

The crowd was overwhelmingly young (majority under 30?) and while mainly white, there was more participation by Black and Brown people than at many recent downtown anti-Trump protests. There was a lot of moving affirmation of the value and strength of trans people, including trans people of color, which underscored how under attack and denigrated this community is. The last several speakers all emphasized standing together, both as trans and LGBTQ people, but also for everyone under attack—Muslims, Jews, immigrants, refugees. One speaker spoke in English and Spanish (called Trump a pinche!).

The Refuse Fascism posters were well received, and the people I was able to talk with, briefly, all readily agreed with the slogan, including the fact that this IS fascism and we must drive out the Trump/Pence regime. We won’t defeat them one attack at a time! But that got me thinking: What do many people understand that term to mean? I think it’s mainly seen as “a lot of attacks, a lot of reactionary shit” and NOT an agenda to fundamentally remake society that has momentum and direction and therefore must be stopped. We also passed out 100s of copies of the Call from Refuse Fascism, which gives people a lot of food for thought about what we’re facing and what response we need to build, and ways to reach and join us. I hope all of you are reading Sunsara Taylor’s latest piece at the Refuse Fascism website, “Why It’s Right and Highly Illuminating to Compare Trump to Hitler,” which addresses one part of this.

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