Trans March kicks off SF Pride weekend

On Friday night, the thousands of marchers who flocked to Dolores Park for the 13th annual Trans March remembered their history, gathering under a nostalgic mantra with the theme, Embracing Our Legacy: Chants like “Hey hey, ho ho, transphobia’s got to go” and “One, two, three four, equality’s what we’re marching for,” rang out as marchers dispersed from Dolores and paraded down Market Street, bound for the Tenderloin. On a more somber note Friday, three organizations pulled out of Sunday’s Pride Parade as grand marshals in protest of the heavy police presence planned during the annual celebration. Black Lives Matter, the Transgender, Gender Variant, and Intersex Justice Project and St. James Infirmary are refusing to march in the parade in their honorary roles to make the point that they feel less safe, not more safe, with the added security, according to representatives of the organizations. Security has been heightened this year in response to the massacre two weeks ago of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando. The parade honoring lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender pride will take place downtown and is expected to draw about 1 million people. “For a parade whose theme is racial and economic justice, we just feel that increasing the police presence — with indiscriminate searches and pat-downs, and undercover officers throughout the event — is really not the way to keep us all safe,” said Malkia Cyril, a Black Lives representative who identifies as queer and gender-nonconforming and had been planning to march with the group. The shadow left by the Orlando massacre, and the 50th anniversary of Gene Compton’s Cafeteria Riot at Turk and Taylor streets, an uprising of oppressed transgender women considered by many the precursor to the LGBT rights movement. Felicia Elizondo, a 69-year-old transgender woman who has lived with AIDS for 29 years, said she was at that historic event. When Friday’s march came to a halt at Turk and Taylor streets, marchers unveiled a new street sign named for the riot. Soon, Elizondo welcomed Supervisor Jane Kim onto the cable car, where she addressed the crowd and called for the protection of the LGBT community. Among the crowd dancing and chanting down the street were allies of the transgender community, like Laura Zucker, a 58-year-old Lafayette resident who came to the city for the march.