On July 13, No Justice No Pride will be holding a march and rally in response to “recent attacks against trans women in DC, and the city’s failure to follow through on promises to protect and support transgender individuals – especially trans women,” the local coalition said in a press release.
The rally, All Our For Trans Women, will begin at 6:30 p.m. by Freedom Plaza. From there demonstrators will march to the Metropolitan Police Department’s Headquarters at 300 Indiana Ave NW. Rally speakers will include Lourdes Ashley Hunter from the Trans Women of Color Collective, Jessica Raven from Collective Action for Safe Spaces, Shareese Mone, and Achim Howard.
Thursday’s direct action, according to the release, kicks off a new campaign for No Justice No Pride, focusing on the ways that D.C. has failed to follow through on promises to support the trans community. In a petition targeting Mayor Bowser, Chief of Police Newsham, and Attorney General Racine, No Justice No Pride calls on city officials to better enforce existing protections for trans people, decriminalize sex work and provide diversion programs for trans people living on the margins, better address violence that targets trans women, and create a community task force of trans community leaders to provide input and guidance to the city.
“During Pride, our message that the city, the police, and the LGBT establishment is still neglecting the most marginalized members of the trans and queer community was loud and clear,” said Emmelia Talarico, a lead organizer with No Justice No Pride. “Now we’re taking action to tell our supposed ‘allies’ to actually show up where we need them most.”
No Justice No Pride is an ad-hoc collective of organizers and activists from across the District of Columbia. They’re goal is to end the LGBTQ movement’s complicity with systems of oppression that further marginalize queer and trans individuals. Their members are black, brown, queer, trans, gender nonconforming, bisexual, indigenous, two-spirit, formerly incarcerated, disabled, white allies. They believe “that there can be no pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.”
