Wednesday, June 29, 2022. New York City – The 4th annual Queer Liberation March titled the “Queer Liberation March for Trans and BIPOC Freedom, Reproductive Justice, and Bodily Autonomy” was in Manhattan, New York City, on Sunday, June 26th, 2022 (photos and video soon).
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Asexual, Two-Spirit Plus (LGBTQIA2S+) people’s march started in Foley Square at around 2 PM and ended in Washington Square Park.
Like every year, thousands of LGBTQIA2S+ people and straight people who are allies marched waving flags representing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Asexual, Two-Spirit Plus (LGBTQIA2S+) people. June is Pride Month and thousands of people in New York City celebrate it.
Palestinians, anti-zionist Jews, and other supporters of Palestine marched to show their solidarity with Palestine. NYC Queers Against Israeli Apartheid chanted, “There is only one solution! Intifada revolution!”
The organization Colectivo Intercultural TRANSgrediendo marched chanting, “Trabajo sexual, libre y seguro, para que las putas tengamos buen futuro.” They thanked Trans women Lorena Borjas, Silvia Rivera y Marsha P. Johnson.
A Colombian man told me that he was happy Gustavo Petro will be the next president of Colombia and Francia Márquez will be the next vice president of Colombia. Francia is the first Black woman to be the vice president.
People love that No NYPD cops and no corporations march in the Queer Liberation March.
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The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Asexual, Two-Spirit Plus (LGBTQIA2S+) people’s march started in Foley Square and ended in Washington Square Park.
THIS PHOTO: People with the banner of the Queer Liberation March 2022.
Photo by Javier Soriano/www.JavierSoriano.com
How many New Yorkers know that New York City is Lenapehoking (Land of the Lenape)? How many New Yorkers know that the Lenape, the original inhabitants of New York City, called the island of Manhattan, Manahatta, which means “hilly island”? We live on stolen land. We live on Native land. Every day is Indigenous People’s Day.
“Foley Square in Lower Manhattan’s Civic Center was the location of Werpoes Village, a settlement on the banks of the Collect Pond. The pond was the main city water supply system for the first two centuries of European settlement. The Munsee lived by the pond until Dutch settlement, and to the west of the pond was Kalck Hoek, where many oyster shell middens were left.”_untappedcities.com
“The land on which you presently stand originally formed the edge of the largest body of fresh water on the island now called Manhattan. On rocky bluffs to the west of this large pond, indigenous peoples feasted on oysters that were commonly as large as one foot. Expert navigators, the Lenape carved boats from timber logs by burning and scraping. These ocean-going vessels were used for traveling, fishing and whaling.”
“Long before pavement and parterres, Washington Square Park was wild. It was a lush marshland teeming with plant and animal life, an idyllic spot on the island known as Manahatta, or land of many hills, to the Lenape. The land actually had a similar purpose to how we use it now. It was a gathering place and cultural hub where Lenape would come to trade and play games or music. Starting west and running south of where the Arch now stands flowed one of the largest natural watercourses in Manhattan, Minetta Creek. Minetta may have come from the word Manette meaning Devil’s Water. Although the creek was buried in the 19th century, it still resonates as part of Greenwich Village history. In fact, Minetta Street was built following the curvature of the creek’s original path.”
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The Reclaim Pride Coalition march took place two days after the Supreme Court of the United States of America (SCOTUS) on Friday, June 24, 2022, overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade Act of 1973 that legalized abortion across the country, a move that threatens the health and well-being of millions of people.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation said, in part, “The Dobbs ruling could be used to justify overturning more of our human rights, including the right to contraception (Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965), same-sex marriage (Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015), and laws banning same-sex sexual relations (Lawrence v. Texas in 2003).
For far too long the Democratic Party has treated women’s rights as a bargaining chip and we will no longer allow that to happen. The failure of the Democratic majority in Congress to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have enshrined abortion rights into law, highlights that the only way we can win the rights we deserve is through mass movements and mobilizations.
Now more than ever we cannot sit back and despair. We must take to the streets across the country and make it clear that we will not accept this. We won’t go back. We WILL fight back!””
The Green Party of the United States said, in part, “The fight for reproductive freedom is not over. Nineteen states currently protect access to abortion services: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Washington DC. Other states have varying laws, making it essential for communities to know their rights.
“Despite professing support for the right to have an abortion, the Democratic Party has failed to take the long-term legislative steps that would provide federal protection,” said Dee Taylor, Co-Chair of the Green Party National Women’s Caucus.
An estimated twenty-six states may ban abortions in most or all cases, either because of existing laws before Roe was decided or because they enacted trigger laws to ban abortions after Roe was overturned. Many of the bans criminalize abortions and put patients and providers at risk for imprisonment.”
Press release by Reclaim Pride Coalition
“Trans people in this country have been under consistent, appalling attacks for years, and we need the LGB community to finally show up for their trans siblings. We cannot be standing on the sidelines while states like Alabama are criminalizing trans healthcare and Texas is attempting to criminalize parental supervision of their trans childrens’ care” said Leah Entenmann, an organizer with Reclaim Pride Coalition.
At a recent town hall hosted by RPC, attendees noted that Roe was always insufficient in actually ensuring provision of the necessary healthcare it protected. Many said they wanted a positive affirmation of the right to healthcare, especially for trans and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), who traditionally face legal and economic barriers to basic care. They also hope the emphasis on queer, trans, and BIPOC people will remind others that reproductive justice is not just for straight, cisgender white women.
“So much of the abortion rights community is focused strictly on cisgender women, but young LGBTQIA2S+ people also deserve the right to privacy and safe abortion access – in impoverished communities as much as in rich communities. Many of those people are trans men or non-binary people, and their concerns are just as real as any cisgender woman’s. Especially considering all of the bans on trans kids in sports and now making trans healthcare outright illegal. It’s impossible to decouple this SCOTUS decision from ongoing attempts to control the bodies of anyone who isn’t cisgender, white, and male,” said Paul Nocera, bisexual RPC organizer since 2019.
Experts have noted the impact this decision would have on not just reproductive rights, but on all of the decisions that relied on the precedent of Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to privacy it supports, including landmark cases Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges, which made anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional and granted same-sex couples the right to marry, respectively.
“Now is the time for us all to fight together. If we don’t fight together, we’ll die together,” said Janis Stacy, who is a trans-identified Native Two Spirit. “Even before this SCOTUS decision, trans people have been denied life saving medical treatments for years. We were told that we aren’t full people. These are life and death issues for many of us. We need our siblings in the LGB community to stand up for us now, because they are coming for you next.”
As in the last three years, this is a peaceful people’s march with no regimented contingents, no corporate sponsors, and neither NYPD control over decision making nor uniformed police marching. The Queer Liberation March revives the goals and spirit of the original Christopher Street Liberation Day March in 1970, born out of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising: social justice, freedom, and access for all!”
Photos and more photos
Click here to see photos by Diane Greene Lent. Click here to see photos by Erik R. McGregor.
Liam Hess writes on Vogue.com, “The first Queer Liberation March was held in 2019, but in the years following, its mandate has only grown stronger; and in the wake of last week’s decision by the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the energy of the march felt more forceful than ever. With the march’s focus on reproductive justice and bodily autonomy, and a particular emphasis on the communities of color who will be disproportionately affected by the ruling, the resounding sentiment was one of solidarity with people whose fundamental right to choose whether or not to have a baby is now under threat.
To celebrate the Queer Liberation March, photographer Ryan McGinley took to the streets of Manhattan to capture the voices leading the charge on bringing the conversation around Pride into the 21st century—and in the words of the collective behind Reclaim Pride Coalition themselves: “No corps, no cops, no B.S.!””
Reclaim Pride Coalition (RPC) is a New York City-based group of LGBTQIA2S+ activists in alliance with dozens of grassroots community groups, nationally and internationally. RPC’s primary work is organizing the Queer Liberation March (QLM). In June 2019, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, RPC mobilized more than 45,000 people to recreate the original 1970 Christopher Street Liberation Day March route uptown from Stonewall to Central Park. In 2020, in the midst of the global pandemic, RPC held the Queer Liberation March for Black Lives and Against Police Brutality. The QLM is the annual people’s protest Pride march, without corporate funding; corporate floats; politicians’ grandstanding; or police control or involvement.
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Updated on Friday, July 1, 2022.
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