Advocates to rally in DC for Trans Day of Visibility amid Trump administration rollbacks

Transgender rights advocates from across the nation will gather on the National Mall this month in celebration of Transgender Day of Visibility, an annual commemoration of trans people worldwide. Organizers hope this year’s rally, set to take place about a mile from the White House, will show a united front against the federal government’s recent attempts to roll back their rights.

“The goal of this event is to, first and foremost, be in community with one another. We need to recognize that trans joy is resistance, and we are going to be there with that in mind,” said Tyler Hack, executive director of the Christopher Street Project, a hybrid PAC and nonprofit named for the New York City street on which the historic Stonewall Inn sits.

The Christopher Street Project, launched in January, is leading the March 31 rally with around a dozen other LGBTQ and civil rights groups. Attendance is expected to be upward of a thousand people, Hack said.

More than 15 members of Congress are expected to attend, according to a media release shared first with The Hill, including Democratic Reps. Katherine Clark (Mass.), Jerry Nadler (N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Sara Jacobs (Calif.), Maxwell Frost (Fla.), Melanie Stansbury (N.M.) and Julie Johnson (Texas).

“We want to show trans folks and allies that there are Democrats in Congress who will fight for us, and we’re going to hear that a little bit from individuals who are speaking,” said Hack. “And we want to show the Republicans, whether that be Donald Trump or Mike Johnson, that we won’t stop being in community with one another or fighting against their attacks on the trans community.”

A flurry of Trump’s executive orders since his return to the White House in January directly impact trans and gender-nonconforming Americans, though none of them actually use the word transgender. An order he signed on his first day back in office proclaims that it is the official policy of the United States to recognize only two sexes, male and female.

“These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” states Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order, which pledges to defend women from “gender ideology extremism.”

The order is the foundation of several Trump administration moves that transgender rights advocates have characterized as attempts to erase trans identities and remove trans people from public life. Transgender and nonbinary Americans are no longer able to change the gender marker on their passports, for example, and federal agencies have been instructed to block trans employees from using facilities like restrooms that match their gender identity.

On Monday, the Department of Veterans Affairs said it was suspending gender-affirming care for transgender veterans because of the order.

“Trans Day of Visibility is a crucial event, especially in this political environment,” said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of Advocates for Trans Equality, a nonprofit organization co-hosting this month’s rally in Washington.

Before Rachel Crandall-Crocker, a Michigan-based trans rights advocate, established the International Transgender Day of Visibility in 2009, the only date dedicated to the community was Trans Day of Remembrance, which honors transgender homicide victims.

“Trans Day of Remembrance is very significant — it’s important, there’s no denying that. But it’s heartbreaking for that to be the only event that really recognized us on a regular basis,” Heng-Lehtinen said. “That’s why there was this push from the community to start an additional thing, still absolutely continuing Trans Day of Remembrance, but also coupling it with something positive, something affirming, something that we can celebrate, and not just mourn.”

Celebrations around the day are slated across the globe this year, and marches and educational events are planned in major U.S. cities, including New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. Last year, landmarks like New York’s One World Trade Center and Niagara Falls were lit in pink, white and light blue, the colors of the transgender flag.

The day also drew renewed attention last year when it landed on Easter Sunday, Christianity’s holiest day.

Religious conservatives and President Trump’s reelection campaign criticized former President Biden, the first to acknowledge Transgender Day of Visibility in 2021, for issuing a presidential proclamation calling on Americans to uplift “the lives and voices of transgender people throughout our Nation and to work toward eliminating violence and discrimination based on gender identity.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, then spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, demanded Biden “issue an apology to the millions of Catholics and Christians across America who believe tomorrow is for one celebration only — the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) wrote on the social platform X that the “Biden White House has betrayed the central tenet of Easter” and called the proclamation “outrageous and abhorrent.”

Days later, at a rally in Wisconsin, Trump responded to Biden’s proclamation and the fallout by promising to declare Nov. 5, the date of the 2024 presidential election, “Christian Visibility Day.”

Organizers of this month’s rally in Washington expect similar responses from right-leaning political figures and religious groups despite Transgender Day of Visibility and Easter no longer falling on the same day. It’s one reason speakers and attendees can expect more security measures at this year’s event compared to years prior, said Heng-Lehtinen of Advocates for Trans Equality.

But the primary focus will be on giving trans people the space to be themselves, he said, and celebrate their identities and community without stigma or fear.

“For trans people ourselves, we are often inundated with negative messages that generate fear and anxiety and hurt. So, it’s really powerful to then be able to see something positive about being trans, see trans people thriving, see trans people succeeding, see people being happy to be trans. That’s a really important counterbalance to the negativity,” he said.

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