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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (June 12, 2015)
Page 8 News Street Roots • June 12-18, 2015 Organizers o f Portland's second Trans Pride March aim to bring visibility to a group whose ‘acceptance is life or death’ | I J jH HI A 'S * * BY SARAH HANSELL STAFF W RITER | I ■ 19 ■ I ‘ ■ • b ’ ; e H L hi i r [L- | >' r . - H i t ast year, Portland’s first large-scale . trans* pride march rallied 400 trans and queer people and allies to parade the streets downtown with signs declaring “Trans Solidarity Unity Community,” “Deaf Trans Pride” and “Gender is a universe and we are ah stars.” This year, Portland Trans Unity, the all- volunteer group organizing the event, expects around 1,100 marchers. Like the Portland Pride Parade, the Portland Trans Pride March is a vibrant celebration of rich and varied communities. The march celebrates the identities and experiences of trans people whose identities — including transgender, genderqueer, intersex and gender nonconforming — fall across the gender spectrum, “When We organized the march last year, was really exciting,” said Emma Lugo, an organizer of Portland Trans March, who also helped organize last year’s event. “It felt like we were doing something new. It felt like we were doing something herstoric.” B A trans pride march had taken place in rights as people in the United States and a the past but, Lugo said, it hadn’t garnered lot of countries.” much support and didn’t continue in later The list of barriers trans people face is years. But about 2 1/2 years ago, Pride NW, long. According to the National Center for the organizer of Pride marches Transgender Equality, 1 in 6 Portland on the West Coast, offered a trans people have been group of trans activists an incarcerated. For black trans Trans Pride extension of its permit and women, the estimate is 46 allowed the group to continue percent. In prisons they are March operating independently. often improperly housed Saturday, June 13 This group, including Lugo, according to their gender organized last year’s march. 2 p.m.: Speakers and identity and, thus/ in danger After the march, the activists when incarcerated. rally at North Park involved split into two camps, They are denied access to Blocks. and one of them became affordable and appropriate 3:30 p.m: March to Portland Trans Unity, the health care, especially the the Pride Festival nonhierarchical group of 33 health care they need for their volunteers that is organizing the at Waterfront Park transition, putting them at risk Portland Trans Pride March this physically, emotionally and year. mentally. But the march is also about more than They experience employment and celebration. It’s about bringing visibility to a housing discrimination based on their group of people that has been persistently gender identity and as a result, they and violently silenced. experience homelessness and “The main thing that it comes down to is unemployment disproportionately. that trans people still don’t have their According to the National Center for rights,” Lugo said. “They don’t have their Transgender Equality, 1 in 5 transgender *Trans, or transgender, encompasses many gender identities or expressions that don’t necessarily match the sex assigned at birth.
