San Francisco transgender community celebrates progress, advocates for equality at march

SAN FRANCISCO — Over the past year, the transgender community has become a target of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. 

At the start of the 20th annual Trans March in San Francisco’s Dolores Park, participants talked about what’s at stake.

“It’s nice out here. The people. The entertainment. The good vibe and some of my friends are here,” said Cristina Gilmore, a drag entertainer who has delighted San Francisco audiences since 1995.

For her, this year’s Trans March rally held special significance.

“Just be out here, pushing out there to be a greater city — just be out there saying ‘hey, we have our rights too! We wanna live life the way we want to live,’” Gilmore said.

As the crowd gathered at Dolores Park Friday evening, Sweet Candi, a transgender advocate who first attended this march in 2008, shared her thoughts.

“Events like these are important because we raise our voices and we’re heard. We’re not gonna just take it. We’re gonna fight back for our rights to have a fair chance to live and be happy,” Candi said.

The organizers say this year’s program has a larger purpose.

“We are celebrating today and putting on intentional programming to validate some of that anger about the 500-plus anti-trans legislation bills that are in the country right now,” Niko Stornent explained.

Sweet Candi says the battle will continue.

“Trans rights are human rights so we have a right to be like everybody else. We’re not hurting anybody and we need to protect the trans youth, too, because they matter and they’re gonna have an opportunity to do things that the youth 20 years ago — when they were coming out — didn’t have,” Candi said.

For four decades, Ms. Billie Cooper has called San Francisco home. 

“I’ve been at the beginning of all that and I can happily say that we have progressed so much within social justice and bringing communities together,” Cooper said.

She’s one of the dozens of transgender people that came together at the Women’s Building for a brunch that marked the beginning of the Trans March celebrations. 

“Throughout the years, we’ve taken two steps forward, and we’re pulled back four steps, but today as we stand here, there are many positive laws for the LGTBQ+ community, but we’re still getting pulled back,” Cooper said.

Her sentiments echo the same frustration of Donna Persona, a 77-year-old transgender woman and activist concerned about the increasing number of anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the country. 

“I was here in the 1970s.Today, in 2023, it seems almost worse than then. The girls didn’t get to live long, but now there’s this pushback,” Personna said. 

Kathleen Sullivan, the executive director of Open House, emphasized their commitment to advocating for the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. 

“Our community is under attack, nationally is under attack, so opportunities like these for our transgender community, young and older, to come together in celebration and get a little pampered helps to put fresh love in the soul of our community members,” Sullivan explained.

That’s why Ms. Billie Cooper offered up a special message to one politician in particular. 

“Hey, Governor Ron DeSantis, my name is Ms. Billie Cooper, and I live in San Francisco. I’m a 64-year-old unapologetically black, transgender woman; a transgender woman that you are trying your hardest to shut down,” Cooper said passionately. “So why don’t you give me a call or send me an email so we can talk?”