Easter Drag march, rally in WeHo had all eyes upon it

2,500 gathered to protest Tennessee’s criminalization of drag

By TROY MASTERS

WEST HOLLYWOOD – It may have been Easter Sunday but in West Hollywood park today there was something akin to revolution in the air. The spirit of activism has awakened, bringing together a very diverse crowd of more than 2500 people for a rally and march to protest the national political tsunami brought on by Tennessee’s laws restricting Drag performers (a law that was today delayed by a Federal judge), in opposition to laws prohibiting gender affirming care for trans youth in several states, and Florida’s ever expanding “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

“They are policing our right to exist! They’re trying to define the contours of our freedoms, restrict our bodily autonomy. And guess what? They’ve tried this before and they lost,” said Joe Hollendoner, CEO of the Los Angeles LGBT Center, setting the stage for the rally ahead of what organizers had billed as a Drag March.

“They are going to lose,” he thundered. “Again! Because we are going to win.”

“This year alone,” he explained, “more than 400 pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation has been introduced and passed throughout the United States. These bills directly target transgender people by denying them access to gender affirming care and criminalizing their free gender expression. They seek to ban books that include LGBTQ people, erase us from history lessons and want to force us back into the closet,” he said.

Hollendoner said the bills were part of a carefully orchestrated effort to label the LGBTQ community as a threat to the public.

“We will not allow it,” he asserted and reminded the crowd that the tactic is not new.

“We’ve seen this tactic before. From its very beginning our movement has fought back from a society that used anti-crossdressing laws and accusations of public lewdness to justify police brutality and overreach. From Stonewall in New York, to Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco and the Black Cat Tavern, anti-LGBTQ legislation has long been used by police to target queer spaces and violate our rights,” Hollendoner proclaimed, adding that the fight was really about the next generation.

“We will raise our voices and we will fight and we will march forward side by side until we achieve the equality that we not only deserve but that we are entitled to,” he declared.

Hollendoner said his team organized more than 40 community partners to host Drag March and rally and told the Los Angeles Blade that corporate partners must also be part of the solution.

The Blade asked Hollendoner, noting that some important LGBTQ allied corporations had canceled drag shows at their venues in Tennessee, what could be done to prevent supporters from walking away from the LGBTQ community at this time of great peril.

“We need our corporate partners by our side 365 and not just at Pride. They need to defend our rights and protect our rights and always stand up for what is right for our community,” he responded.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath ad- dressed what it means to be Christian: them know that will not stand for hate no matter what. We need to let people know that there are a lot more of us who believe what they are doing is wrong,” the supervisor responded.

“This community is about love. They try to tell us that we are an abomination, being here together in support of one another. Well, I am here to say that it is an abomination to allow young people to die by gun violence in our schools because they refused to take action,” she declared and taking aim at Tennessee expulsion of two Black representatives who led protests over that state’s inaction on gun control after a school shooting in Nashville killed 6.

My message to you, for all of us, is to “understand our power,” TransLatin@ Coalition CEO Bamby Salcedo said to the crowd when taking the stage at a rally that preceded Drag March. “Do we have power?” she asked the colorful, drag-bedecked, crowd of more than 2,500 people gathered in WeHo Park. The crowd roared and responded “Yes” to which Salcedo exclaimed “Do we fucking have power?” and eliciting an ever more passionate response.

“We need to understand that we DO have power individually and collectively. And we need to understand that our power puts elected officials into office. And our power is the power that’s going to get those mother fuckers out. They want to devalue and diminish our existence,” she said.

“So, I want to say, FUCK THEM. Let’s say it together: FUCK THEM.” And the crowd roared with a defiant, yet jubilant chorus of “FUCK THEM.”

“To wear our colors is scary sometimes,” said Mariana Marroquin, program manager of LA’s Trans Wellness Center. Marroquin, who fled the murderous anti-LGBTQ brutality of Guatemala in 1998, worries where all this legislation is headed. “Just to walk out of my home and into the streets is scary sometimes, but I keep doing it. Because, I’m not going back. I am not going back,” she said, admonishing the crowd to commit to the young people. “I keep doing my work and I’m going to think about all of you.”

“It is an abomination against our API community and against our Jewish community. It is an abomination to see how the LGBTQ community is constantly targeted.” “And they,” she said of the legislative hate activists, “know they’re wrong. We are the majority and we will continue to rise up.”

Tennessee has become the new front in the battle for the future of Democracy in the US after Republicans expelled two Black lawmakers from the state legislature for their part in a protest urging passage of common-sense gun controls in the open carry state. Their protest come after a school shooting resulted in the deaths of 3 ten-year olds and 4 adults, including the death of a shooter who may have identified as non-binary. The shooter’s identity has been used in political discourse in the Tennessee blogosphere, some rightwing media and some legislators to further demonize the LGBTQ local community and buttress anti-lgbtq legislation, a strategy that at first diverted any discussion of a firearms crisis in the state until a protest on the floor of the Tennessee Assembly led to the expulsion of two Black legislators.

Before the rally, Horvath said the county “will stand strong and firm” on behalf of the LGBTQ community and when asked what the county might do in response to Tennessee’s government, said “We have to do all that we can to communicate to the legislators in Tennessee and let

West Hollywood Mayor Sepi Shyne also addressed the rally: “We are facing the take away of our rights and our democracy. It’s important that we uplift our rights and keep coming out and fighting because if we stop doing that they will win and we will lose our rights. We don’t want to fall backwards. That also means fighting for all other intersectional communities that are under attack,” she said.

The mayor also spoke passionately about the parallels to other communities and issues, saying “Women’s rights and the rights of Black and Brown people and Asian Americans and all BIPOC folks- if we come together we will win.”

“We’re going to have to keep coming out and fighting,” she added with emotion, “maybe for the rest of our lives. But they can never take away from us our authenticity.”

Equality California Executive Director Tony Hoang said the we have to protect LGBTQ youth from the growing backlash, even in solid blue California.

“We are tired of watching right-wing extremists attack our rights and our humanity — and attack trans folks and LGBTQ+ youth in particular,” he said.

“Over 400 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in Capitols across across state legislatures — with one of those being introduced here in California, AB 1314, a forced outing bill that would require school staff to notify parents within three days after learning a student is identifying as a gender that doesn’t align with official records or their birth certificate.”

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