Sexual Liberation March Protests Trump in DC

Daniel Trujillo’s first month of third grade was “pretty easy.”

He is in two different jazz bands and is a member of the school chapter of March for Our Lives, a student-led organization that promotes gun control. He dreams of studying music in college.

But getting there wasn’t easy for Daniel and his family, especially in Arizona, where a surge of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and investigations threatened their sense of safety.

In 2022, the state Republican Party banned gender-reassignment surgery for minors in Arizona, where the procedure was already rare, and banned trans girls from playing on girls’ sports teams in school. (A federal appeals court ruling this week stopped the latter law from taking effect.)

Daniel’s mother, Lizette Trujillo, has traveled from her home in Tucson to Phoenix for every legislative session for the past six years, taking time off work to testify against anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. Daniel has been traveling with her since 2020.

“My husband and I are small business owners, and that has given us the flexibility to dedicate our lives in this unique way to fighting trans legislation in our state. If I can volunteer a few hours, it means something,” Lizette Trujillo told HuffPost.

And when they’re not traveling to the state capitol, the Trujillo family focuses on creating a safe and accepting community in their city.

Daniel jokes that his parents did everything they could to make sure he didn’t see a transgender person all day. He attended queer Latino camp. The family went to a progressive church and met the Rev. Lewis Mitchell, a black trans pastor.

Lizette Trujillo leads a group for parents of trans youth and runs a carpool for trans youth during the school year. Every weekend, families spend time with other families of trans youth in a community space where kids can hang out and just be kids, and adults discuss the results of efforts targeting LGBTQ+ youth in Arizona.

But the Trujillo family knows the threat exists just outside their blue bubble.

When Donald Trump took office, Daniel was 9 years old, and he was just beginning to learn what the former president’s threats of mass deportations meant for his father, a Mexican-born U.S. resident at the time, and his family of mixed identities.

“I imagined my father, who had immigrated for safety, having to leave again to seek safety somewhere else,” Daniel recalled.

“We’re living at this intersection,” Lizette Trujillo said. “I think it’s really important for people to understand that Daniel is an extension of our fight for freedom and inclusion and equality as Mexican Americans, and that transgender and queer people are part of our family. The Republican Party knows that, and that’s why they’re always trying to mislead our people with lies and fear tactics.”

Organizers across the country are warning of high stakes in November’s presidential election. The Coming Threat of the 2025 Project, A conservative playbook for a second Trump presidency, led by the Heritage Foundation. Project 2025 equates transgender people with pornography, calls for the federal government to enforce sex discrimination protections based on the “binary biological meaning” of “sex,” and calls for educators and librarians to share materials about trans identities. You must register as a sex offender.

Trump also vowed that if he were re-elected, he would roll back Title IX protections for transgender students and criminalize doctors who provide gender-affirming care. The former president has repeatedly claimed in recent weeks that children are undergoing gender-affirming surgeries in schools without parental consent. This week, he also declined to say whether he would veto a national abortion ban.

In contrast, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris campaigned on a promise to restore access to abortion and “a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body.” Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has been a champion of trans rights in his home state.

The upcoming Supreme Court case, LW v. Skrmetti, will decide the legality of the ban on gender-affirming therapy for youth. The justices will begin oral arguments next month, and their decision, expected next summer, could have far-reaching implications for the state of gender-affirming health care for trans youth across the country.

Activists argue that the election results and the court’s decision on gender confirmation treatment—a decision that overturned abortion rights—will affect all sorts of vulnerable people in society. That’s why organizers are working hard to bring these fights together under the broader framework of the fight for bodily autonomy, while also celebrating the beauty of self-determination.

Daniel’s story is one of nine stories about transgender and gender nonconforming youth featured in the American Civil Liberties Union’s new “Freedom to Be” campaign, which launched this week and aims to shine a spotlight on two things advocates say are largely missing from mainstream narratives and reporting on transgender youth: joy and intersectional identities.

And on Saturday sexual liberation movement — a new group helping to bridge the gap between trans rights and reproductive rights movements — is holding its first march and festival at Columbus Circle in Washington, D.C., a block from the Heritage Foundation headquarters. Daniel and Lizette Trujillo will be on stage at the event, along with other trans rights advocates. Major Yang and actors Elliot Page and Julio Torres.

“The heart of this effort is looking at the connections between all of these attacks, especially from the right, and the attacks on marginalized communities,” said Raquel Willis, a Black trans activist and writer who co-founded the Gender Liberation Movement with organizer and communications director Eliel Cruz and others. “We know that restrictions around access to abortion and reproductive justice have been an energizing fight for many on the left, and many in queer and trans circles have fought against restrictions around access to gender-affirming therapy.”

Conservatives often use the same political strategies to target both abortion and transgender rights, Willis said.

“The strongest connective tissue that links our struggles is bodily autonomy,” she added.

Restrictions on reproductive rights come alongside rollbacks of LGBTQ+ rights, harsher immigration policies, and restrictions on what parts of American history can be taught. At school – and What should it be It was censored, Willis said.

She added that everyone is affected by anti-trans laws and rhetoric, but especially cisgender women of color and gender non-conforming women. As an example, she pointed to Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who recently won the women’s boxing title at the Olympics, and whose recent Olympic victory drew a barrage of criticism from Trump, author J.K. Rowling, and billionaire Elon Musk. They Falsely claimed Khelif is transgender It caused an online outpouring of criticism against her.

“The key to this gender liberation work is to help people understand that there are other ways, that none of us fit into a perfect script or box,” Willis said. “What can we do when we blow up that box or expand it?”

Transgender people are also affected by other systemic issues along lines of race, gender, and class, from access to reproductive health care to immigration. The fact that there is beauty in living with identities that intersect with that fact is part of what these advocates are trying to convey.

West Virginia trans activist Ash Orr said she had to go to a Pennsylvania hospital to get an abortion because Roe v. Wade led to the state’s blanket ban on abortion. Orr said getting care at Planned Parenthood was the first time she was able to open up about her trans identity and feeling trapped in a toxic marriage.

He said the abortion was part of his sexual identity recovery treatment and helped him transition.

“At that point, I felt like all the guards that I had set up were down and I was able to talk to my provider and finally come out and say that I was transgender,” Orr said. “That was the moment when I not only got my abortion, but I was able to come out of this closet that I had locked myself in.”

Willis hopes the sexual liberation movement will:n momentLessons learned from past protest movements.

In the summer of 2020, after the murder of George Floyd sparked protests around the world, Willis and Cruz helped organize Brooklyn Liberation, a massive march and rally to raise awareness of the disproportionate violence faced by Black trans people, particularly Black trans women. “I hope today is the last day that the power of Black trans people is questioned,” Willis said. Said crowd.

Some of the group’s organizers helped dozens of trans youth, including Daniel Trujillo, throw the first-ever Trans Youth Dance Party in 2023. Trans youth from around the country gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in their best dance party outfits to call attention to the surge of anti-trans legislation and protest these attacks with joy and celebration.

When Lizette Trujillo thinks about why she spent so much time testifying before Republican officials in Arizona, and why she and Daniel are headed to D.C. this weekend, she thinks about the next generation of transgender youth.

Recently, Lizette took some trans kids from her community out to get their nails done. On the way home, the kids quietly confided in her about their anxiety about the upcoming election.

“They expressed their fear in a way that a 10-year-old cannot. A 10-year-old should not understand how policies affect their lives. They should feel safe at home, at school, in public places,” she said. “I think about that all the time, and I promised them that no matter who wins the election, we will take care of each other. We are there for each other.”