March for Queer & Trans Liberation set for Sunday, March 23

Organizers are encouraging DFW’s LGBTQ community members and our allies to take part in the Queer & Trans Liberation March happening Sunday, March 23, from 2-5 p.m. on Cedar Springs Road.

Jacob Reyes, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination’s representative in Texas and communications director for Texas Latino Pride, noted that he began organizing the march as a response to the wave of anti-LGBTQ laws, policies and orders being put into place across the U.S. and across Texas.

“This year, there have been 205 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in the Texas Legislature,” Reyes said. “As a community, we must respond. It sounds very simple, but we want to get people out of the bars and into the streets. We want to get them involved as part of this larger movement.

“We use Dallas’ Oak Lawn/Cedar Springs Gayborhood as a place to celebrate our community. And we have so many opportunities to celebrate our queer joy in what is a very unique block of space in this city,” Reyes continued. “But it is also important for us to remember and to recognize that it is time, now, to use this space for a larger cause, to say that this is our community, and we are here.

“We will continue to celebrate, continue to express our queer joy,” he added. “But we will also organize. We will mobilize, and we will push back against any and all of the transphobia and homophobia we see coming not just from the White House and the Texas Legislature, but from all across this state and this country.”

The march will begin near the intersection of Cedar Springs Road and Inwood Road, with the exact location to be announced Saturday, the day before the event, and will end at the Cedar Springs/Throckmorton Crossroads. Reyes said that organizers have arranged private security to ensure the safety of all the marchers, and that they have coordinated with city officials to ensure all the proper permits are in place.

He said that there will be speakers before and during the march.

More than 20 organizations are backing the march, and organizers have held public town halls to “give those who aren’t part of any organization a chance to have input,” Reyes said. “We really want to make sure that everyone has felt included in the process.”

Presenting organizations and businesses include Texas Latino Pride, Impulse Dallas, Resource Center, Equality Texas, GLAAD, Stonewall Democrats of Dallas, The 23rd Senatorial District Tejano Democrats, Round-Up Saloon and Caven Enterprises.

Speakers will include Resource Center CEO Cece Cox, state Rep. Jessica Gonzales, Dallas City Councilman Omar Narvaez, Texas-based drag artist and Emmy Award-winner Lushious Massacr, transgender activist Stacey Monroe and Impulse Dallas President Ressie Gamble, among others.

Cox, who has been advocating for LGBTQ equality for more than 30 years, said, “Many LGBTQ Texans live in fear due to the dangerous setbacks the community faces in the state. Transgender youth feel unsafe in their own classrooms; LGBTQ seniors face discrimination in housing; the liberating art of drag is in danger of erasure — and so much more.

“These concerns should motivate us, though,” she said. “The Queer & Trans Liberation March sends a message to all in Dallas and across Texas that when we stand up and show up for our communities, we move closer to reclaiming justice.”

Gamble added that the march “comes at a major turning point in our movement. As the LGBTQ community continues to face setbacks from bigoted minds, it is our responsibility to come out in the spirit of unity and tell the naysayers that erasure is not an option. We cannot let the brute the bigot and the batterer win in times like these.”

Reyes concluded, “Out of the bars and into the streets, the Queer & Trans Liberation March will begin a movement across Texas.

“Our lives depend on it.”

— Tammye Nash