At Chicago’s Trans Liberation March, Attendees Vow: ‘We Have To Keep Fighting’

BUENA PARK — For a group of trans and gender-expansive Chicagoans, the city’s Pride festivities looked a little different Sunday. 

Minutes after the Pride Parade concluded, a group of nearly 200 people marched from Haymarket House, 800 W. Buena Ave., to Cricket Hill in Montrose Harbor for Chicago’s third annual Trans Liberation March.

The march was organized by the group Stop Trans Genocide to demand an end to the epidemic of violence facing trans and gender-expansive people.

It was created as a police-free alternative to the city’s annual Pride Parade, said Stop Trans Genocide organizer Danelle Wylder.

“Corporate pride has kind of lost all meaning. It’s not about fighting for more anymore,” Wylder said. “The Trans Liberation March is really about what that fight looks like, how we can build a real solid movement based on prioritizing the voices of the most silenced in our society.”

The march ended with a community event led by the group DykStryk featuring performances from local comedians, bands and workshops led by organizations like Pushing Envelopes and the Illinois Harm Reduction and Recovery Coalition.

Stevie Schultz, 39, attended Sunday’s march after seeing a poster about the event at a local coffee shop. 

It felt particularly important to be surrounded by their community this year, said Schultz, who has been socially transitioning for a year and a half and started hormone replacement therapy two weeks ago. 

“It feels incredible to finally just see all the community and know that we’re not alone,” they said. “I’ve been going to community therapy sessions, but to see it out in public and in everybody’s face is just great.”

Chicago’s Transfemicide Emergency

At least 16 trans and gender-expansive people have been killed in Chicago since 2016, according to multiple news reports. Most recently, 31-year-old Davonta F. Curtis was found dead inside her East Garfield Park apartment in April. 

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office said Chicago had the highest murder rate of Black transgender women in the United States when it declared a “transfemicide state of emergency” in December 2024.

The declaration also established a Transfemicide Working Group to develop strategies to end violence against trans women in Chicago, but community responses to the group have been mixed. 

“There’s been a lot of good first steps, but I think there’s a big desire for consistency and follow through,” Equality Illinois CEO Channyn Lynne Parker told Block Club last summer. “A lot of great things get started, but trust comes from knowing they’ll continue.” 

“It’s mostly lip service,” Wylder said. “It’s without any actual, real deep work in the community.”

Ray L. Jones, an organizer with ACT UP Chicago, addressed the crowd Sunday, calling on Johnson to take further action on his emergency declaration by committing city funds to subsidize gender-affirming surgeries, declaring a state of emergency to address long COVID and the HIV epidemic, and institute a rent freeze for Chicagoans making less than $75,000 per year. 

“No one should be sleeping on a train when the city of Chicago has allotted $400 million to decorate State and Lake,” said Jones, referring to the overhaul of the Downtown ‘L’ station. 

In June, the Transfemicide Working Group released a report outlining a framework for continued action, the result of talks with community partners and three community meetings held on the North, South and West sides. 

The group’s recommendations include investing in trans-led organizations, expanding safe, gender-affirming housing and increasing access to health care and mental health services. 

The report also calls for “strengthening trust between transgender residents and the Chicago Police Department through ongoing engagement, training, and accountability measures.” 

The working group is overseen by the police department and the city’s Commission on Human Relations and includes members of trans-focused organizations like Brave Space Alliance, Howard Brown Health and the Chicago Therapy Collective. 

Pride parades began as a commemoration of the Stonewall Riots, the 1969 fight against New York City police led by Black and brown trans women and sex workers. 

“We’ve seen that kind of be turned into something where we’re capitulating to the system that created the system that oppresses us in the first place,” Wylder said. “Where we’re taking money from big corporations who, as we’ve seen this year, are throwing us under the bus as soon as it becomes not profitable.”

Seeking A Safer Space In Chicago

Dawn Heilung, 28, was frustrated with the police presence at Sunday’s march. For the majority of the route, several officers followed the marchers on bikes and at least two police vehicles followed. 

“I was in the back of the march, making sure that the cops didn’t encroach upon the march, because they were trying to make us go faster. But it was nice to just keep a slow pace,” said Heilung. “I think part of queer liberation includes walking slow in the streets sometimes, because the streets are ours in fact.”

The American Civil Liberties Union is currently tracking 529 anti-LGBTQ+ bills across the country, many of which target the rights of trans and gender-expansive people. This legislative assault has led many trans and gender-expansive people to move to Chicago in recent years with the expectation of better job opportunities and safer spaces to gather. 

“I feel as though we live in a time in which our administration, even our city in some ways, says that trans people should not show up and commune together,” Heilung said. “So to take up space on the street, as a rally, as artists, as community, matters.”