Gender Liberation March Brings Elliot Page, Miss Major, Peppermint, LGBTQ+ Youth to Washington D.C.
Cole Witter
On September 14, protesters came together in Washington, D.C. for the first national march hosted by the Gender Liberation Movement. Tying together the fight for abortion rights and gender-affirming care as a shared one for bodily autonomy and gender liberation, the Gender Liberation March featured “youth leaders and families of trans youth, Palestinian and anti-Zionist Jewish voices, and elders” like Stonewall veteran and longtime trans advocate Miss Major. Other speakers included actor Elliot Page and drag icon Peppermint. Organizers estimate at least 2,000 people turned out.
Focused on the threats facing communities across the U.S., the march was also an effort to raise awareness for fights soon to come, particularly the approaching U.S. Supreme Court case LW vs. Skrmetti, which will hear arguments about youth access to gender-affirming care. GLM co-organizer Raquel Willis cited the “starkly right shift” of the Supreme Court, as well as past actions for gender justice and liberation, as inspirations for the action in an interview with Teen Vogue.
“We're not having nuanced enough conversations on gender and on our bodies,” Willis said. “The right to have an abortion if and when you see fit is connected to the right to make decisions around gender affirming care, whether you're going to take hormones or have a procedure, or have access to even mental health care.” Willis connected these fights to “Black and brown communities that are facing the brunt of police violence,” and “increased militarism and the bombardment of Palestinians in Gaza and beyond.”
Many of the youth attendees of the Gender Liberation March who spoke with Teen Vogue were already experiencing impacts from state-level anti-LGBTQ+ policy. Finnick, 18, and Ahna, 18, both moved out of Florida in the last few years, where Gov. Ron DeSantis's “Don't Say Gay” push has become a model for states looking to enact similar policy.
“Coming from Texas and growing up there, living there my entire life, seeing the debate on trans rights and our autonomy has been something that I've grown up with,” Safara Malone, 20, with the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) National Network and Harvard sophomore, told Teen Vogue. “Escaping to Massachusetts has been amazing: to see what you can do, and the life you can live when you have access to trans-affirming healthcare, when you don’t have to see your state government fighting over the legislation around your body constantly, that has been really impactful.”
There was significant focus on how much of this policy shift has been in states with Republican-controlled legislatures. Willis also acknowledged the approaching 2024 presidential election: “Sure, it is important, but we are being failed across the political spectrum. We just saw at the Democratic National Convention very minimal mention of transgender people, and definitely no direct mentions of the attacks happening across the country to ban trans youth from being themselves, ban trans adults from being themselves, ban LGBTQ+ curriculum, ban books, ban drag performance, and so much more… the uptick in the number of legislation introduced regarding the LGBTQ+ community has happened under the watch of the Biden-Harris administration.”
“We know that the fight continues, regardless of who gets into the Oval Office come January 2025, and that's not a knock on folks voting. We have a tent for folks who get registered to vote,” Willis continued. “We do believe in electoral power, but we also know that there are so many other levers of power, and so we want folks to know that your power doesn't start or end at the ballot box; as much as we like to say that it does in the United States, it doesn't. It's everyday people who feed and clothe and house and keep safe and heal folks who for too long have been failed by many of the institutions around us.”
Interviews have been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Daniel, 17 (he/him) and Lizette (she/her/ella) Trujillo
Daniel: Me and my parents have been advocating for trans youth and their families, especially when it comes to Latinx families, since I was nine, and that was the first time I had testified on my State Capitol floor. We've been doing that non-stop, and I'm 17 now, so eight years. Honestly, it's a lot of my mom doing a lot of meetings, a lot of organizing, and just kind of putting us in the sphere of this all that allowed us to find out about it and be like, we're gonna go, we're gonna do this.
Lizette: We've been living in this test state, where they've piloted and kind of figured out how to get hate passed. Living in our state, we've had incremental wins and we've had losses, and so being able to be here as his mother, but also as somebody whose repro freedom was taken away from them, too, it was really important to us to really support and give voice to.
D: On the ground, I go to school, I have a lot of friends. A lot of them are queer. A lot of them are supported; a lot of them are not supported. Not a day goes by where I'm not surrounded by another trans person or another queer person, because a lot of my parents’ friends are queer. My parents own a small business, and even their workers are all queer. So there's not a day where I'm not reflected back to myself.
Then when I drive up to the Capitol and I have to testify against people, it's the one moment when I do face a lot of discrimination. It's the only time since, like, elementary school, when little kids are just mean, that I've been deadnamed or misgendered, or just dismissed because I'm “too young to understand myself” somehow.
L: Which is just not true.
Daniel has big dreams of going to school out of state. He's only a junior, so he still has another year. Honestly, prior to Biden dropping out, I was like, I can’t in good conscience send you to another state with a really dangerous administration in office. It feels like most of our life has been in “pause, go, pause, go.”
Going to college, he should have the opportunity to just dream big and apply everywhere, which is what we plan. But there's always that fear in the back of like, will he be safe where he goes? Our lives shouldn't be reliant on who wins the presidency. It's awful that discrimination impacts families of trans youth in such a distinct way.
D: Everyone is here for those that can't be here, those that couldn't make it, like our ancestors that weren't able to make it to come here.
I really hope that trans kids see this and feel loved. My whole thing is that you have community, even if you can't go outside and feel it immediately, but there are people out there for you, and that want the best for you.
L: To the parents who may be reading this, I want them to know that there's nothing that can't be stopped when people stand up for their children and love them fully. This is kind of my call to action to all parents, to stand up and to be brave and visible, so that trans youth know that they aren't alone. There's a saying in Spanish that's, in translation, “how you love someone, others will love them, too.” If parents just stood boldly in their love, they would be able to change what is happening to our children and to families in other states.
Ahna, 18 (he/they) and Valerie, 20 (she/her)
Ahna: What brought me out here is because I think it's very important to actually get outside and do activism, protest, get your voice heard, because if we don't what's gonna change? We can't just sit around and hope that things will get better.
Valerie: I'm out here for pretty much the same reason, although partially because he practically dragged me here. I just wanted to make sure that all of our voices were heard, and that there's some sort of change happening.
A: To all the trans kids in the South who are dealing with really anti-LGBT bills and legislation, keep living, keep shouting, keep acting out and don't die. We need to live.
V: My message is for all the trans kids who think that nothing's gonna happen, because bad things keep happening or their family doesn't support them. It gets better, everything gets better. You'll find your own family. You'll find people who truly cherish you for who you are, and who will be by your side and will be able to get you wherever you need. Everything all comes around, and it'll be alright in the end.
A: And f*ck Ron DeSantis. I protested during the “don't say gay” bill stuff, and God, it was just awful. I never want to experience Florida hate ever again. It's just something different out there.
The march also called attention to the potential impacts of Project 2025, a proposal from right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation that co-organizer Willis said “is really pushing to track and monitor and keep data on people's reproductive health care and also access to abortion… They want to strip all mentions of queer and trans people from public life, public and political life in order for there to be even less data access and resources, for us to be our truest selves.”
Finnick, 18 (he/him)
My rights are currently being taken away, and, you know, I'm not a big fan of that. I feel like as a person, I should be able to have healthcare and not die. Hot take, I want to live.
I want to be here to obviously support that message, and also just support the trans community as a whole. I'm very privileged as someone with a supportive family, and I've been able to medically transition, and I'm white, so I know I have privilege, but so I want to support the people who don't have as much.
To the trans people who [weren't] able to make it out [to D.C.], I know everyone says it, but you're not alone and it does get better. I know it doesn't seem like it, but it does, and it will be okay, and you just gotta keep going, because you being you is enough. You don't need to go out and do something to be alive. You living is more than enough. You gotta keep doing that.
To to the cis people, listen to trans people. Don't be listening to bigots about trans issues. They have no idea. Marjorie Taylor Greene is not trans. She doesn't know any trans people. Talk to trans people, trans youth, supportive parents and gender affirming care doctors, they know what's up. Don't get this biased information from outside sources.
If you're the loved one of a trans person or a trans child, it doesn't matter what you think. Having a trans child is better than having a dead child. Having a trans relative is better than them being dead. You need to support them, because you don't know what's going on and it's really rough out here, and it sucks. You need to be supportive.
Ale, 21 (they/them)
I came out 3 years ago as nonbinary, and I started dressing however I pleased, and it was life changing. But there's people who express disagreement with my basic freedom to choose the clothes that I wear, so I was just like, this is just the perfect cause for me to join.
To cis folks, you're always going to be around queer people. They're everywhere. I think it's better to try to learn about the people in your community. You don't have to be the same as them. You don't have to transition or anything like that. That was never the point.
I think what we're realizing now is that transphobia and queerphobia affect cis people too, because you may identify as cis, straight, whatever, but other people – because of whatever stereotypes – might label you as otherwise and just direct that hatred and violence towards you. None of us deserve any violence. I think this movement is about peace, it's about freedom, and I think cis, straight people can get behind that.
My parents are both cis and straight. They looked at me today. My dad said, looking good. And then my mom said in Spanish, tan hermoso. It just means so much to me, because even though my mom doesn't really get the they/them pronouns in Spanish, because it's a gendered language, she still celebrates me.
Also, Chappell Roan, if you see this, I love you!
After marching from D.C.'s Union Station past the Capitol building to the steps of the Supreme Court, the march progressed to the streets in front of the Heritage Foundation office, where DJ Griffin Maxwell Brooks played a set while members of the House of Miyake Mugler and protesters danced together.
“Probably the heartbeat of today was us having an impromptu dance party in front of the Heritage Foundation. Beyond our resistance and our resilience and our fight, there's so much joy and sacred beauty, and that's truly what freedom is. Freedom is a young Black trans person voguing in the street. It is a young Latino trans boy and his affirming mother and father coming together to say, Hey, we want to fight alongside you for the world that you deserve. It's folks being able to hold up signs that are not respectable, that speak to the most radical parts of their experiences and identity, doing that in broad daylight. It's both being able to articulate the threat of tyranny and fascism in this country.”
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Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
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