On the morning of October 5th, 2024, Members of Housekeys Action Network Denver, Denver Communists, Mutual Aid Monday, Lunch Punks, Revolutionary Communists of America, and Denver Community In Solidarity With Palestine, plus many other allies descended upon the Capitol to dispel myths and drown out groups like Gays Against Groomer (G.A.G.), Mom’s For Liberty, Dad Army, and many other anti-trans hate groups. We found out about their rally a week before and gathered together to remind these groups that they are not welcome in Denver, or Colorado!!! When these groups had gathered earlier in the summer, their rally was large in numbers with flags of known hate groups flying high.
Not this time around G.A.G. and their minions never had much of a crowd throughout the entire day. We arrived at 9am to police tape blocking the entire front grounds of the capitol and were told that it was because G.A.G. had a permit for the whole capitol. The hate rally was scheduled for 10am to 2pm. By the time their rally had begun, they were met with a large group of people armed with noise makers, flags, and our voices. Suffice to say, the “Stop the war on our children” rally was ruined. Our group was able to successfully drown out their little hate rally, and they were breaking down by noon!!!
We consider this a victory for protecting the rights of trans youth!!!
Though we were victorious over these hate groups that day, our fight continues! Denver is known as a ”sanctuary” city for trans people. As more and more states continue to pass draconian laws limiting access to the badly needed Gender Affirming Care for trans people, especially trans youth, many will come to Denver to escape this persecution. They will do this whether they have the means or not to survive here. Our wonderful trans community does a lot for these people, but unfortunately we can only do so much. Many transgender adults and youth will end up on the streets. Denver does not have the necessary queer based houseless services they need. Yes we have a day shelter, but it’s also for hetero cis women, and it only has so much capacity to help. This is unacceptable! Day by day we’re seeing an increase in trangender people living on the streets, many living outside because Denver’s emergency shelters are gender segregated, and unsafe.
Being trans in this day and age is hard enough, with the amount of vitriolic hatred we face in our everyday lives. Then add in the hardships of just trying to survive on the streets. Denver needs to create a safe overnight shelter with queer based services for queer houseless people, run by queer people NOW! The flow of Queer people to our state will continue to grow, and sadly we have nothing to help them and their needs. Denver has already seen the ramifications of not having queer based houseless services. We can think back to this last Father’s day when Denver Police responded to a call of a houseless BIPOC Trans person having a mental health crisis. They proceeded to shoot her 12 times in the span of at least 15 seconds of responding. Not only is the blood of our community member on the Denver Police’s hands, but the city’s as well. This person was clearly having a mental health episode that may have been prevented, had they been able to access queer based houseless, and mental health services.
Leave a Reply