THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

The rally came in the wake of the murders of eight transgender women in 2015 along with alleged incidents of abuse at the hands of law enforcement and corrections officials as well as reports published by the Movement Advancement Project ( MAP ), the Center for American Progress, the National Center for Transgender Equality ( NCTE ), and the Transgender Law Center demonstrating alarmingly high levels of poverty and widespread discrimination of transgender individuals in almost all areas of American life.

"We're trying to bring attention to the unconstitutional, structural damage that is attacking our trans community," Vida/Sida Health Center Director and Trans Latin@ Coalition member Maritxa Vidal told Windy City Times. "Not only hate crimes and murders but also homelessness, lack of jobs, lack of funding in organizations where transgender people can be trained and get positions of leadership. A lot of people have to leave school in their first or second year because of bullying and the only way they can survive is by practicing street economics and that's where the danger comes in."

The demonstrators formed a wide circle in the center of the plaza under the scrutiny of a number of CPD officers and the cameras of onlookers. "We are human beings like everybody," marcher Janet Namer stated with defiance. "We pay taxes, we work and we deserve the same treatment. The police don't respect us just because we are transgender. A lot of [trans] people like us die every day and the police don't care. They treats us worse than animals."

A manifesto distributed at the event stated "we the trans community invite LGBTQ and allied institutions to join us in putting an end to the violence that our community has historically experienced. We are demanding intentional, meaningful investment in our community's effort to eradicate this epidemic."

Included in a specific list were demands for funders and organizations—especially LGBT foundations and grantors— to invest in the transgender community and primarily those organizations located in communities of color, meaningful equity of resources in order to eradicate the economic and health crisis that transgender men and women face, big-tent and anchor organizations to leverage access to policy makers and funders in order to support trans-led efforts in eradicating ongoing structural violence and LGBT and allied organizations to hire trans people in leadership positions. "If you serve us, you must include us," the list stated.

"It's going to take a lot more than our mobilizations," marcher Pedro Mercado said. "When a trans person of color dies, commits suicide or has violence committed against them it hardly causes a ripple, but when something happens to an affluent person it's all over the news."

Renowned transgender leader and activist Alexis Martinez stated that the LGBT community must create unity.

"The next step is building bridges across race, class and gender and we need to be more proactive about dealing with racism, sexism and classism within our own community," she told Windy City Times. "Anything is possible if you work at it and do the outreach. We're a splintered community and people just don't know us."

"People say they want to be supportive of the LGBT community but they have to be inclusive of every single letter in that spectrum," Mercado added. "Advocacy groups should be doing more with us. They should have our voices heard and not just come support us, go away and say 'oh this is what we're doing'. It takes a lot more than what those guys are doing. They must include everybody else. They're getting national coverage but we're the ones who are trying to do the work and these are things that we're going through every single day."

"We're getting hit on all sides," Vidal said. "But when it comes to helping the trans community it's always tomorrow, it's always next year. We're asking our LGBTQ community to stand with us. Set aside money for training, put us in leadership positions and don't just use us for the numbers. All we want from the police is dignity, safety and protection. When girls get killed they don't call us what it is—a hate crime."

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