Tens of thousands of people rallied across the US on Sunday, to campaign for the rights of black transgender people – a group particularly at risk of violence and of being killed.
In New York City, thousands of people gathered at the Brooklyn Museum to demand fair treatment for black trans people, while an estimated 25,000 marched along the Hollywood Walk of Fame in an “All Black Lives Matter” demonstration.
The rallies, which also took place in Chicago, San Antonio and Boston, came after two black trans women were killed in the space of 24 hours last week.
Dominique “Rem’Mie” Fells was found dead in Philadelphia on 9 June having been brutally killed, while Riah Milton was shot dead in a robbery in Liberty Township, Ohio, on the same day.
In Brooklyn, activists dressed in white in a tribute to an NAACP silent protest parade of 1917 that sought to highlight racist attacks. Speakers included the sister of Layleen Polanco, who died of a seizure in June 2019 while being held in solitary confinement at New York’s Rikers Island jail.
“Black trans lives matter,” Polanco’s sister, Melania Brown, told the crowd. “My sister’s life mattered. All of the loved ones we have lost, all of these beautiful girls that we have lost. Their lives matter. We have to protect them.”
Organizers said 15,000 people attended the rally, which came two days after the Trump administration finalized a regulation which will erase Obama-era protections for transgender Americans against discrimination in healthcare.
“We can’t just talk about trans people when they’re dying,” Eliel Cruz, one of the co-organizers of the event and a director at the NYC Anti-Violence Project, told CNN. “But what are we doing actively and intentionally to create space for them to be safe and well?”
At least 14 transgender or gender non-conforming people have been fatally shot or killed by other forms of violence so far in 2020, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
“It is clear that fatal violence disproportionately affects transgender women of color – particularly Black transgender women – and that the intersections of racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and unchecked access to guns conspire to deprive them of employment, housing, healthcare and other necessities,” the HRC said.