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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’
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BY SARAH HANSELL
STAFF W RITER
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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.