LGBTQ activists in Los Angeles, California, scheduled an “all-ages” Easter Sunday “Drag March.”
As Christians assemble for the holiday which commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ, participants in the LGBTQ event will march on Santa Monica Boulevard through the late morning and early afternoon. The Los Angeles LGBT Center announced on social media that “we’ll gather in our Sunday Best” as they drew attention to bills against child sex change procedures and sexually explicit drag shows recently filed and passed in numerous Republican states.
“There are already over 400 pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation on the books,” the Los Angeles LGBT Center said in a description of the march posted on Eventbrite. “Unsurprisingly, most of them target transgender people. Dress code? Sunday’s Best Drags.”
Activist organizations such as the ACLU of Southern California, the National LGBTQ Institute on Intimate Partner Violence, and Equality California are listed as supporters of the march. All Saints Los Angeles and Founders Metropolitan Community Church, both of which consider themselves “inclusive” to LGBTQ identities, also endorsed the event.
“Drag has always been political and gender has always been policed,” the Los Angeles LGBT Center continued. “There are many shades of the rainbow, and once again, it’s time for us to put them all on full display; we will not stand by while the far right seeks to roll back our rights.”
New Orleans, Louisiana, will meanwhile see a “Gay Easter Parade” on the afternoon of Easter Sunday, an event which has been held on the Christian festival for almost two decades. Berlin, Germany, will host a “Leather and Fetish Week” which invites enthusiasts from across Europe for a “weekend of fun during the Easter holidays.”
The events indeed come as Republican governors and legislators advance bills to outlaw sex change procedures for minors, noting the permanent damage that surgeries and cross-sex hormones can render upon patients. Other bills passed by Republican states prohibit sexually suggestive drag shows in public or near children.
LGBTQ activists and Democratic officials have roundly criticized the legislative proposals. The White House recently hosted a roundtable with “transgender kids and their parents” hosted by United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy and White House Domestic Policy Council Director Susan Rice to discuss the state-level efforts to ban sex change surgeries.
“As one round table participant shared, it feels scary when the politicians elected to represent you don’t care about your wellbeing,” a readout of the meeting from the White House stated. “Families participating in today’s roundtable also highlighted that transgender kids can thrive when parents love and affirm their transgender children, and when transgender kids have access to the support they need at school and in their communities.”
The Easter activism comes days after a 28-year-old woman who identified as a man killed three children and three adults at The Covenant School, a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee, on March 27.
Post a Comment