On Friday, July 10, a militant rally took place in San Diego to defend trans rights. This rally was to raise awareness of an outrageous anti-trans California ballot initiative called the Personal Privacy Protection Act, to demand legal protection for trans folk, in particular trans youth, and to demand equality for all trans people and an end to anti-trans violence.
The right-wing ballot proposition measure, which would require more than 365,000 signatures to gain ballot access, is being promoted by the same right-wing group of bigots that tried to repeal the California School Success and Opportunity Act (AB 1266), signed into law in 2013. This progressive law requires schools to allow trans people to use bathrooms and to play on sports teams of the gender with which they identify.
If passed, the new measure would force trans folk to choose a restroom (in all public buildings) based on their designated sex at birth. Under this proposition, if a trans person used a bathroom based on their gender identity and was caught, or someone refused to use the restroom while they were in there, a trans person could be fined a minimum of $4,000.
This act would force transgender folk to misgender themselves by being forced to hide their true gender identity, which amounts to an act of discrimination and a violation of personal rights. Having to go into a bathroom and fear for one’s safety because one’s gender identity doesn’t match one’s designated sex at birth is blatant discrimination. Under this bigoted proposition, trans people could be fined a minimum of $4,000 for wanting to be comfortable and safe while in the bathroom. Not only is this discrimination; it represents a source of potential violence by bigots and thugs.
The rally was full of energy and highlighted trans speakers. Speakers listed demands such as safe-space bathrooms and being able to change their name without feeling harassed.
Other demands included pro-trans education such as promoting wider access to narratives of trans folks. Speakers also demanded safe spaces, the elimination of police harassment of trans people, schools that do not harass trans youth, as well as access to models of health care that are trans affirming with staff trained to provide access to quality health care for trans people.
Another demand of the protest was to stop the bullying of trans youth in schools by students and faculty, and to stop telling trans youth that they’re just being “dramatic.” Three suicides of trans youth have been recorded recently in San Diego County. Taylor Alesana, a trans student at Fallbrook High School in San Diego, died tragically from suicide due to bullying at the school.
The San Diego LGBTQ Resource Center sharply criticized the school administration and the school principal for what amounted to silent approval of the bullying and the homophobia that went on at the school: “With few adults to turn to, and with no support from her school, her life became too difficult. Taylor was a beautiful and courageous girl, and all she wanted was acceptance.”
A basic message of the rally was that transphobia and racism can no longer be ignored. In addition, many speakers mentioned the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969, and the leading role that trans women of color played in the historic uprising against anti-LGBTQ brutality and homophobia. Speakers pointed out that unfortunately the heroic role of trans women of color at Stonewall in New York City, the Compton Cafeteria in San Francisco and other early protests of resistance, is too often ignored by too many in the LGBTQ movement.
This militant rally reaffirmed the fact that no politician is going to really fight for LGBTQ rights, and that the independent movement of the people will win. Throughout history, oppressed and exploited people have always fought back and will continue to do so. With marriage equality being accomplished, the rally underscored the need to focus now on the fight for trans equality and against anti-trans violence. “We got a victory and that’s great, but we must move forward, we must keep fighting. Trans rights are everybody’s rights,” said one of the protesters.
As San Diego mourns the loss of those trans youth who died as a result of bullying and anti-trans violence as well as the tragic and heartbreaking suicides of so many trans youth around the country, in a society where trans and gender nonconforming youth have a suicide risk of 47 percent versus about 3.1 percent of the general population, the time has come to unite in solidarity with all trans youth in their struggle for equality and a world free of bigotry and violence.
