LGBTI / Queer News

Together, Linda Martín Alcoff, Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, Nancy Fraser, Barbara Ransby, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Rasmea Yousef Odeh, and Angela Davis write: In our view, it is not enough to oppose Trump and his aggressively misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic and racist policies. We also need to target the ongoing neoliberal attack on social provision and labor rights. Let us use the occasion of this international day of action to build a feminism for the 99%, a grassroots, anti-capitalist feminism – a feminism in solidarity with working women, their families and their allies throughout the world. Let us join together on 8 March to strike, walk out, march and demonstrate.

On January 21, one day after Trump was inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States, women and allies in cities across the U.S. and countries throughout the world marched in protest in record numbers. In Washington, D.C., where the original Women's March was called, around 500,000 attended, far more than had come for the Trump inauguration itself. In Los Angeles, some estimates set the number present at nearly 750,000. Some of the largest marches in Northern California were in Oakland, San José, San Francisco, Sacramento, and Santa Cruz.

On November 22, hundreds of Japanese Americans, Japanese, and supporters of human rights rallied to call for unification against racism, xenophobia and attacks on immigrants, LGBT and other disenfranchised communities. The rally was held at the Peace Plaza in San Francisco's Japan Town. Participants reflected on the effect on themselves and their families of the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans, Peruvian Japanese, and Japanese in concentration camps during the Second World War.

On June 26, hundreds of anti-fascists gathered on the grounds of the state Capitol, ready to deny access to white supremacists who had announced plans to hold a rally that afternoon. Members of the Traditionalist Workers Party had secured a permit from the California Highway Patrol to rally on the steps of the Capitol building along with other anti-immigrant and racist groups. Antifa forces made certain the rally never happened, despite suffering serious casualties while repelling the Nazis.

The San Francisco Trans March is San Francisco's largest transgender Pride event and one of the largest trans events in the entire world. Thousands of people attend. The 12th annual Trans March was held on June 24, and this year's theme was "We Are Still Here Embracing Our Legacy." This year is also the 50th Anniversary of the Compton's Cafeteria Riot that occurred in 1966 at the corner of Turk and Taylor streets in San Francisco. At the pre-march event, politicians Mark Leno, David Chiu, and Mayor Ed Lee were booed off stage.

SOMOS LGBT, a community organization raising awareness on equality and acceptance for all, began in Watsonville nine years ago. On the evening of June 13, SOMOS LGBT held a vigil at Watsonville Plaza to "remember one of the most horrific tragedies committed against the LGBT community." The day before, a mass shooting occurred at a gay nightclub in Orlando, resulting in 53 wounded and 50 dead, including the gunman. SOMOS LGBT will hold a vigil in the Plaza every day until Sunday from 6:30 to 7:30.

Thomas Leavitt writes: We are proud to announce the launch of BiNet Santa Cruz, a new grassroots community organization specifically aimed at providing a voice on behalf of and organizational vehicle for the bi+ community in Santa Cruz County. BiNet Santa Cruz is to be a local affiliate of the national BiNet USA organization.

Hundreds of people from more than two dozen groupings responded to the Anti Police-Terror Project’s (APTP) call to come together for 96 hours of direct action over the Martin Luther King Day weekend, January 15-18, in San Francisco and Oakland. Mayors and police chiefs were targeted for protest. The weekend’s events culminated in a Reclaiming King’s Radical Legacy March and a surprise shutdown of the Bay Bridge on January 18.

On July 1, hundreds came together in spirit, unity, and love to transform the unacceptable destruction of the mural on the outside wall of Galeria de La Raza in the Mission District of San Francisco. The mural installed by the Los Angeles Maricon Collective is a celebration of LGBTQ people, and accompanies the presentation in the Galeria, The Q-Sides. Speakers emphasized that unity must be maintained in the Mission, healing with love not revenge, even though the vandalism was a hate crime

Same-sex weddings took place across the country after the Supreme Court ruled on June 26 that all 50 states must now permit LGBTQ couples "the fundamental right to marry." After the Supreme Court’s historic ruling on marriage equality, many LGBT organizers are now redirecting their attention to obtaining federal, state and local legal protections in areas of employment, housing and commerce. Locally, activists want to shift the focus to issues that LGBT immigrants and prisoners face in detention centers across the U.S.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence took the lead in organizing a protest held in front of Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California on June 1. Sister Roma said that it's time Mark Zuckerberg realized that identity is fluid. She and about 100 others traveled from San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area to Silicon Valley to demand that the social media company remove the fake-name reporting option and stop asking users for government IDs.