Today at the Captiol Building... .

[lydamorehouse]

 
Image: Sign saying: (trans) Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

This morning, in my inbox, was a notification from "Women's March Minnesota" reminding me to generally be political. Among their various suggestions was a rally TODAY at the State Capitol at 2 pm to protest HF12, which is a piece of legislation aimed at trying to restrict trans women and girls from participating in sports in Minnesota. OutFront MN organized it to happen in front of the House Chambers as they were going into deliberation (we started at 2 pm, the legislature started their talks at 3:30 pm). I actually couldn't stay for very long as I had to pick Shawn up from work just down the street at the History Center. But I showed up and hung out as long as I could. It was delightful to watch people from all over show up, unfurl trans flags, rainbow flags, and nonbinary flags. 

At least one (obvious and fursuit wearing) person from the furry community showed up and I could not have been more pleased. I fucking LOVE Minnesotans.

There was an absolutely DISTURBING number of heavily armored, armed State Troopers at the Captiol, however. I presume they were there for us, because the folks protesting right before we were where homeless foster kids who were trying to save their program's funding and (sadly) there weren't nearly as many of thos folks.

At any rate, the police presence seemed like overkill. 

Still, for a Monday afternoon, I thought it was an amazing showing.  Here's a shot that gives you a small sense of the crowd. We filled the second floor of the rotunda and spilled down into the first floor. 



Image: Doesn't look nearly as impressive as it was. Most of the signs say "Let Kids Play" (in trans flag colors)

I don't know what good it will do, but I do think the MN Legislature now knows we will turn out in force when they threaten trans folks. There was not a single MAGA hat in the crowd. Hopefully, soon, we will get our majority back (in Minnesota) and we can block crap like this from even being discussed.

But, until then, we FIGHT.

Comments

[radiantfracture]

<3

[lydamorehouse]

The addendum to this (as I will post in a bit) is that we won. We were expecting to win, but I think that Minnesotans showed up yesterday to show the rest of the Left that we, for one, don't believe trans rights issues should be "thrown under the bus" for some fictional "moderate" who would otherwise vote for Democrats.

[sabotabby]

This is beautiful. Thank you for fighting.

[lydamorehouse]

It gets better. We won. The bill wa voted DOWN.

The Minnesota legislature is very blue (liberal, I should say, since for some inexplicable reason our liberal party in the US has chosen blue instead of red) and so it was never likely that this bill would pass. And if it had, we have Tim Walz to hold the line (and he would.) BUT (and wait until you see the article that ran about this which I am posting in a bit) people showed up in DROVES to, I think, let the rest of the nation know that trans rights are human rights and NON-NEGOTABLE. We do NOT leave trans people behind in some insanely misguided effort to become more like the NAZIs who are currently running our country. W.T.F. NO.

And given how awful it is to be an American right now, this was nice to see.

[sabotabby]

Thank you even more, then. This brings me hope. Which as a Canadian who didn't even get a chance to vote against the man fucking up all our futures, I really need.

[profiterole_reads]

<3 Well done!

[lydamorehouse]

As I told Sabs, it gets better. We won. It was voted down.

[profiterole_reads]

Yes, there were a bunch of skeets about it this morning. :D

[lcohen]

police overkill sounds frightening, but it is awesome that people gathered and that you were able to be there!

[lydamorehouse]

It turns out that once school was let out (just about when I had to leave) MASSIVE numbers of students showed up. The MNPR (our local NPR station) had some amazing pictures of the crowd. So... maybe they were actually there for like crowd control? It felt awfully creepy before then, though.

[pameladean]

That looks impressive to me. And thank you.

I see that the similar S9 bill in the U.S. Senate failed its cloture vote, which is cheering. But the persistence of the people pushing these useless evil laws is so enraging.

P.