NORTHAMPTON – Lorelei Erisis, a transgender activist, addressed a crowd of about 40 people through a megaphone at a rally for trans rights in Pulaski Park Friday morning.
“As bad as you think things are now, things are worse. They are bad for trans people,” she told the crowd.
Usually Erisis tells people that it’s going to be OK, but now that’s not the case, she said.
Recently, The New York Times broke news that the Department of Health and Human Services may establish a legal definition of sex based on the genitalia one was born with through Title IX, the federal civil rights rules on gender discrimination in publicly-funded education institutions. Sex would be considered unchangeable by their definition, according to the report.
At the state level in Massachusetts, legal protections of discrimination against transgender people are under threat. Although a 2016 law added gender identity into protections in public accommodations, Question 3 on the Nov. 6 election ballot asks whether or not to keep that law in place.
Friday’s rally, “We Exist, We Resist – Rally Against Trump’s Transphobia” was organized by Western Massachusetts Students for a Democratic Society, a chapter of the national organization that mobilizes mostly student-age people for progressive causes. They collaborated with the Yes on 3 campaign, the major group working to uphold protections for trans people in public places, to plan the event. Rally organizer Mod Behrens said the Northampton event is one of several similar rallies organized or supported by Students for Democratic Society in different places around the country, including Florida and Wisconsin.
Speakers in Pulaski Park highlighted that despite the recent news from the Trump Administration, they will persevere.
“We’re here and have always been here,” said Sky Karp, a Smith College student told the crowd. “No one is able to wish us out of existence.”.
“We will not be erased,” Karp added, referencing the “#WontBeErased” hashtag that many recently used on Twitter to rally behind transgender rights.
Luke, a transgender man, told the crowd about a time when he was unfairly kicked out of a men’s locker room. “This order was dropped on me not because I was doing anything that would be deemed lewd, harmful or merely creepy,’ he said. “It was because I was not being recognized as the male human that I am.”
Speaker Karl Tonge, a non-binary person and field organizer for Yes on 3, told the crowd that they moved the Massachusetts about a year ago from Michigan.
“I didn’t move here to have my protections taken away,” they said.
Erisis highlighted that ballot Question 3 is about more than bathrooms. “I’m sick of talk about bathrooms,” she said, adding that it’s also about providing protection in spaces like parks, courts and busses.
“Without this law I could be removed from this park right now for just being who I am,” she said.
Marie McCourt, who ran for 2nd District Hampshire County state representative in September, was confident that the “yes” side will win on ballot Question 3. But she reminded the crowd that after that, there’s still work to be done on securing rights for transgender people.
“There’s so much left to do,” she said.
Though Erisis said trans rights are under attack, hope is not lost.
She told the crowd, “Democracy is broken – make no mistake – but that doesn’t mean you can exempt yourself from the polls … You have to vote.”
She added, “You must get involved because our lives are at stake.”
Greta Jochem can be reached at gjochem@gazettenet.com