Activists celebrate Trans Day of Visibility in Philly amid a wave of anti-trans bills nationwide

Hundreds of demonstrators rallied outside City Hall on Friday evening to call for increased protection of trans rights in the wake of two major anti-trans bills that became law this week. The two bills, passed in Kentucky and West Virginia, are part of a wave of anti-trans legislation conservatives are pushing across the country.

“We won’t go down without a fight,” said Zach Jackson, an 18-year-old nonbinary student at the Community College of Philadelphia, as the crowd cheered. “Hopefully these laws will not come to Philadelphia, but that doesn’t stop me from being scared.”

Jackson said they were grateful their mother and siblings were there to support. Jackson’s mother, Naima Truxon, said she had Googled the term “nonbinary” when Jackson first came out and had learned along the way. She was proud of their activism and wouldn’t have missed the rally.

The demonstration came during a surge of anti-trans legislation. There are currently 424 active bills nationwide — including three introduced in the Pennsylvania legislature — seeking to block trans people from accessing health care, education, and other rights, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker. The president of the American Principles Project, one of the conservative groups lobbying hardest for anti-trans bills, described such legislation as “a political winner” to the New York Times.

“Folks are upset about what’s going on in other states,” Breighton Golphin, 31, one of the organizers of the demonstration, said in an interview. “But the question is, what are we going to do here?”

Golphin said the Philly Trans March decided just two weeks ago to organize a Trans Day of Visibility rally, partly because Philly is in the midst of a heated election season. (The Philly Trans March’s annual event is held in October). Organizers urged attendees to post on social media and tag the city’s many candidates for mayor and City Council.

Attendees, many of them young and enthusiastic, carried blue, white, and pink trans flags and handmade signs reading “Menstruation has no gender” and “We keep us safe.”

Wes Allen, a 17-year-old trans student at Central High School, told the crowd that if Pennsylvania’s anti-trans bills became law, “they would not only ban me from my sport of choice, but would ban my younger brother from even mentioning me in his classrooms.”

“Should I be a banned topic?” Allen asked.

Currently, the city offers some protections to trans and nonbinary students. Schools and organizations that serve young people here must allow trans and gender-nonconforming youth to use the names, pronouns, clothing, and restrooms that correspond with their gender identity, under city regulations enacted in 2022. Employees also cannot share the transgender status of children without their express consent.

Still, LGBTQ advocates in Philly have watched in alarm as anti-trans bills elsewhere make progress.

“We’re deserving to be treated like human beings. As it stands now, we’re being treated like monsters who should be eliminated and vanquished,” said Kendall Stephens, 37, in an interview before the demonstration. A Philly-based transgender activist who grew up in North Philadelphia, Stephens was attacked in her home in 2020 by a group shouting anti-trans slurs. One of the attackers pleaded guilty in February.

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Stephens said when she was growing up, she felt “trans people weren’t seen at all,” to the extent that lawmakers were not specifically targeting them. Paradoxically, she sees the wave of anti-trans bills as a sign of trans people’s growing political power.

“We’ve been dealing with anti-transness for as long as we can remember,” Stephens said. “We’ll get through this, too.”

In Kentucky this week, the Republican-led legislature overrode the Democratic governor’s veto of a bill that LGBTQ advocates have called one of the most extreme in the nation. The law bans gender-affirming surgery, puberty blockers, and hormone therapy for children under the age of 18, prohibits lessons about gender identity and sexual orientation in schools, and prevents school districts from requiring or recommending that teachers use children’s desired pronouns.

But the demonstration in Philly was also a celebration. Originally envisioned as a day to affirm the positive existence of trans people, as opposed to focusing solely on violence against them, Trans Day of Visibility has been recognized on March 31 since 2010, according to the advocacy organization GLAAD. This is the first year in recent memory that a demonstration has been held in Philly in honor of the day, Golphin said.

Those at the rally said they found it heartening. Jo Corvis, 27, was wearing a handmade trans flag cape made from oversize pink and blue sequins. A resident of West Philadelphia, Corvis said they had made most of their friends at past Philly trans marches.

“I’m excited, a little overwhelmed,” Corvis said, before joining the crowd as it surged down Market Street.