A couple of hundred advocates for transgender rights took to the streets of downtown St. Louis on Monday, marching from Kiener Plaza to City Hall.
The demonstration celebrated Trans Day of Visibility, an international event, but many people were also there to send a message to lawmakers.
“You can do whatever you can try to do to us, but we're not going anywhere,” said Ryan Klinghammer, director of events with the Metro Trans Umbrella Group. “We've been here. We're going to be here no matter what they throw at us. Nothing's going to change that.”
In the first months of the second Trump administration, President Donald Trump has signed multiple executive orders restricting trans rights, including policies aimed at gender-affirming care for minors, passports for trans people and school sports participation for trans girls.
Affton resident Dawn Lillicrap said she came to the demonstration to show that trans people are not hiding.
“I'm definitely not very happy with what the administration is doing right now, and I think there's a lot of weird fearmongering on trans people,” Lillicrap said. “That's just not right.”
Multiple LGBTQ St. Louis organizations partnered to hold the event, including MTUG, Black Pride St. Louis and Blue Max Cycle Club, a gay motorcycle and leather club. The club’s historian, Joe Hosea, said the community has to come together right now.
“There's too many people trying to divide us, so we have to be united, and we have to be LGBTQIA,” Hosea said. “The whole gambit, the whole alphabet soup, is one community and we have to remember that.”
At a rally following the march, a representative from the mayor’s office read a proclamation for the day of visibility.
The rally ended with drag performances on the steps of City Hall. Robyn Beck is the inaugural Miss Metro Trans Umbrella Group and performs as Gloria Goode in drag. Beck said performance brings her community joy, which is necessary for survival.
“As the world becomes a less safe place for us, I refuse to be unseen,” Beck said. “I refuse to not live the experience that I was destined to live. I am a mother. I am a survivor of domestic violence. I am a woman of faith. I am multitudes, and I deserve to live just as anybody else would.”
See more photos from the march and rally below:
