Christy Cox, 58, says she has been fighting for the rights of transgender people like herself for decades.
“I’m here to really show that queer elders do exist, so that 8-year-old kid over there can see that you can grow up and be a 58-year-old trans person,” Cox said.
The Naperville resident, who joined close to 1,000 people Sunday at a transgender rights protest in Federal Plaza, held a sign that read “survive out of spite.” Cox said this kind of visibility is something she wishes she’d had growing up. Even with attacks on transgender rights from the Trump administration, seeing transgender youths show up with their parents at the afternoon protest gave her hope.
The protest, led by the advocacy group Trans Up Front Illinois in partnership with Indivisible Chicago, took place the day before Trans Day of Visibility, which is recognized by LGBTQ+ advocates Monday.
Trans Up Front Illinois organized another protest in February outside Lurie Children’s Hospital when the hospital announced it would no longer provide gender-affirming surgeries for patients under 19.
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, he has signed numerous executive orders targeting transgender people, including a ban that prevents transgender athletes from participating in women and girls’ sports, an order that forces transgender women in federal prisons to be housed with men and a restriction on the ability of transgender, nonbinary and intersex people to change their gender markers on passports or to serve in the military.
At Sunday’s protest, attendees displayed a range of emotions, from anger due to the Trump administration’s attacks, to joy because of the sheer number of people who showed up to publicly support transgender people.
“We are a resilient people. Don’t you dare tell them we don’t belong,” Precious Brady-Davis, a commissioner for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago and the first Black transgender woman to be an elected official in Cook County, said to the crowd. “We belong in every (sector) of society, from the boardroom to the bathroom. Quit playing with us. Our lives matter and we deserve to be treated with respect and decency.”
The actions of the current administration against trans people hit home not just for individuals, but organizations supporting transgender people in Illinois, with some organizations put into jeopardy as the Trump administration cracks down on funding for LGBTQ+ organizations.
“As many of you know, Trans Chicago staff were laid off,” Tichike Tumalan, program coordinator for the Puerto Rican Cultural Center’s Trans Chicago Empowerment Center, said to the crowd. “Our (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) funding was temporarily cut, and even though some of us were rehired, there’s still that instability of whether or not we’ll lose these grants again tomorrow.”
While the protest focused on transgender rights, the event was endorsed by organizations advocating for other issues, including neighborhood groups, an abortion rights group and a cannabis rights group.
“You are on the people’s menu, and on this menu, every single one of us here will be served a course of injustice,” Channyn Parker, CEO of Brave Space Alliance, said to the crowd while holding up a menu. “We are all under attack. We are all on the people’s menu.”
Once all the speakers had finished, and just as it started to rain downtown, the crowd marched from Federal Plaza to Trump Tower.
