#ProtectTransWomen Speakout held on Freedom Plaza

On the 15th of March, under a brutally cold wind, transgender folks and their allies held a "speakout" on Freedom Plaza. This was just days after vandals trashed Casa Ruby LBGT Community Center and assaulted staff members.

The current political and social environment has turned exceptionally dangerous for anyone who is not a white, cisgendered, heterosexual Christian. What began with Trump's brazen attacks on Muslims and Latino people has spread into racist attacks on everyone who is not white, neo-Nazi bomb threats and violence against Jewish community centers, and hate crimes against gender and sexual preference nonconforming people. In just the first month after the election, the SPLC reported 1,094 bias-related incidents throughout the US. Murders of transgender women in 2017 have already run at the highest rate ever recorded according to the SPLC, including four murders just in the last week of February. The previous record for murders of transgender women was set in 2016.