Days after two black transgender women
were murdered and the Trump administration eliminated trans
protections in health care, thousands attended a Black Trans Lives
Matter protest in Brooklyn.
According to CNN,
thousands of people swarmed the Brooklyn Museum and surrounding
parkway in New York City on Sunday to hear speeches, wave signs, and
chant slogans.
The demonstration was organized by the
Marsha P. Johnson Institute, The Okra Project, and Black Trans Femmes
in the Arts.
The body of Dominique “Rem'mie”
Fells, 27, was fished out of the Schuylkill River in southwest
Philadelphia on Monday. Both of her legs had been severed, police
said. The following day, Riah Milton, 25, was shot to death in
Liberty Township, Ohio. Police have arrested two suspects in the
killing, an 18-year-old man and a 14-year-old girl. It is believed
the suspects lured Milton from Cincinnati to rob her. Both victims
were black.
On Friday, the Trump administration
finalized a much-anticipated rule that eliminates transgender
protections in the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
(Related: LGBT
groups to sue Trump administration for eliminating transgender
protections in health care.)
Speakers at Sunday's protest included
transgender activist and author Raquel Willis.
“This collective of folks is
particularly powerful because it's modeling what is possible when you
do have allies and folks who do care and also want to make sure that
they're building something that speaks to the hearts of the actual
people that they're representing,” Willis told CNN. “So often
that doesn't happen.”
An All Black Lives Matter protest in
Los Angeles attracted an estimated 25,000. Other protests took place
in Chicago and Boston.
Khery Petersen, who attended the
protest in Boston, told CNN
affiliate WCVB: “We know that black people are vulnerable –
especially vulnerable in this society – and especially trans folks
and trans black folks. So I think it's important we all show up and
build solidarity.”
According to the Human Rights Campaign
(HRC), the nation's largest LGBT rights advocate, there have been 14
reported murders of trans and gender non-conforming people in 2020.