Advocates say focus needs to shift to the struggle for recognition of trans community.
Story Transcript
TAYA GRAHAM, TRNN: It’s an annual celebration of pride, and now accomplishments: Baltimore’s gay community and its supporters marching through the city’s Mount Vernon neighborhood to bask in unity and progress. SPEAKER: You see so many youth out here. I think people come here from all around Maryland. GRAHAM: The annual Pride Day, a tradition in the city which has come to embody Baltimore’s embrace of gay rights. And the gains made in the Supreme Court this year brought with it a sense of hope for the future. SPEAKER: We do belong here. This is our–this is your, this is our right. GRAHAM: But along with newfound optimism are concerns from another community that has received less attention. SPEAKERS: Your voice is power. Silence is death. GRAHAM: Supporters of the city’s trans community gathered before Pride Day to bring attention to what they say are struggles of a people whose rights have yet to be recognized. SPEAKER: We demand that any hospital or clinic in the city providing medical services to transgender people be composite and non-discriminatory in their treatment towards us. GRAHAM: Including [Dierra Venable], who was arrested while protesting and incarcerated during the Baltimore uprising. Trans advocates say Venable’s struggles symbolize their concerns that trans people still face discrimination, both within the LGBT community and outside of it. SPEAKER: And you know, in the LGB community is trying to put us as part of the LGBTQ community, but we want, but we deserve to be–we want, deserve that we have equal rights, just like the LGB does, and not to be pushed away by the short end of the stick. GRAHAM: Which is why they say they will continue to fight. Not just for tolerance, but for acceptance. SPEAKER: We didn’t ask somebody the basic things in life, like housing, access to healthcare, disability recognitions, stuff like that. You’re ultimately shortening their life because you’re not giving them the advantages to have the best full life that they can. GRAHAM: This is Taya Graham, Megan Sherman, and Stephen Janis, reporting for the Real News Network in Baltimore.
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