Centre LGBT+ is working with groups from around the commonwealth for a demonstration on Sunday in Harrisburg that organizers say is the first of its kind in more than a decade.
The 1 p.m. march around the state Capitol Complex and rally on the main Capitol steps will call on state, federal and local lawmakers to ensure equal rights and protection for LGBTQ Pennsylvanians.
“We are unfortunately living through a time of unprecedented assault against the rights, dignity and personhood of queer and trans people across this country,” Michel Lee Garrett, a Centre LGBT+ board member, said. “It is more important than perhaps ever before for the queer community and our allies to stand up and declare that we are citizens of this commonwealth, and we are citizens of this country, just like our friends and family and compatriots, and that we deserve the same freedoms, the same liberties, the same rights and the same protections, and that these assaults against queer and trans lives are fundamentally un-American and fundamentally unaligned with the values that have guided us as a nation since our founding.”
Organizers say transgender people have been the initial target of recent attacks on the LGBT community in the form of policies and actions from the Trump administration, state and local governments, school districts and health care systems, ranging from gender identity on government documents to programs and instruction in schools to access to gender-affirming care for both adults and youth.
Garrett noted, though, that U.S. Supreme Court has also been asked to take up a case seeking to overturn marriage equality, and that the justices “seems poised to rule against the ability of states to ban extremely harmful and discredited conversion quote-unquote therapy.”
“There have already been further attacks against our communities, including cuts to funding for HIV-related services and threats to roll back the rights of all Americans to marriage equality,” Cat Cook, executive director of Centre LGBT+, said in a statement. “Now more than ever, we need everyone — LGBTQ+ people, our allies and loved ones, our elected officials — to raise their voice and work together to put a stop to these anti-LGBTQ+ actions.”
Organizers of Sunday’s rally are focused on three pillars that Garrett said represent “the fundamental rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for queer and transgender people.”
They include equal rights, urging lawmakers to take action “to protect the right of LGBTQ+ Pennsylvanians to have equal access to housing, employment, healthcare and public accommodation.” Pennsylvania is the only state in the Northeast that does not have a law explicitly prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
“We have been actively working to get protections implemented in our local communities, but it is time for our Pennsylvania officials to step up as they hear our message loud and clear,” Kyle McIntyre, of Delaware County-based community center UDTJ, said.
Also among the three key areas of focus is equal and equitable healthcare access, demanding that lawmakers and healthcare networks “protect and provide life-saving and affirming healthcare services for members of the transgender community,” as well as fully fund HIV prevention and care programs.
The rally will also call for equal protections, including legislation affirming same sex marriage in the commonwealth, banning conversion therapy and adding LGBTQ+ status to the state’s hate crime laws.
Garrett said she sees those demands and queer and trans existence as fundamentally nonpartisan issues that are expressions of the nation’s founding principle of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
“I feel very strongly that this is something that should unite us across party differences,” she said. “I feel like the principle that the government does not have the authority to tell an individual what to do with their life or with their body as they are not hurting other people or taking away from the liberties of other people is something that can be agreed upon across the political spectrum and should be agreed upon across the political spectrum.
“We are unfortunately seeing the kind of rhetoric that devalues transgender people, that delegitimizes transgender people, that demonizes transgender people from both sides of the aisle. And this is an issue where we really need to come together on these fundamental principles and uphold the rights of queer and trans people to life, to liberty and to the pursuit of happiness.”
Sunday’s event, Garrett explained, grew out of the regular discussion and collaboration among Centre LGBT+ and other LGBT nonprofits to share best practices and funding opportunities, and to talk about common challenges and how they can best serve Pennsylvania’s LGBT+ population.
“As part of that group of queer organizations across the state, we’ve been having a lot of conversations around how do we effectively advocate for the concerns and the needs of queer and trans people in these times of increasing attacks and anti-LGBT+ legislation across the country,” Garrett said.
That has resulted in coordinated, nonpartisan advocacy campaigns, as well as rallies held in State College and communities throughout the commonwealth.
“Sunday’s rally was natural evolution of this collaborative work to raise our collective voices on behalf of the communities that we serve,” Garrett said. “So this is Centre LGBT+ and a number of other organizations across the state coming together, raising our collective voice and demanding that our lawmakers of all parties and all political populations come together to stand up for the fundamental rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for queer and transgender people.”
Several dozen people from Centre County are already set to carpool to Harrisburg for the rally, and similar efforts are underway among other groups around Pennsylvania to bring participants to the Capitol, Garrett said.
Anyone wishing to travel with the Centre LGBT+ contingent can email info@centrelgbtplus.org or michel@centrelgbtplus.org.
“There are carpools and buses and vans coalescing in Harrisburg from all over the state,” Garrett said. “And we are hoping to see hundreds of bodies in the streets, unified in our vision for a future that protects, uplifts and affirms queer and trans people.”
