Trans March To Kick Off FL Pride Parade, Hopes To Draw 1,000 People

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — The annual Trans March, celebrating and honoring transgender, nonbinary and gender-expansive people in the community, will step off from Vinoy Park on Saturday at 5 p.m., ahead of the St. Pete Pride Parade and march to Albert Whitted Field.

Check-in will begin at the park at 3:30 p.m. Those interested in participating can register online here or just show up for the march.

The Trans March launched in St. Petersburg in 2017, though it skipped a year during the COVID-19 pandemic, Callen Jones, president of TransNetwork, which is organizing the event with St. Pete Pride and a committee of local community members and allies.

It’s grown significantly since then and, now, the event is “more important than ever” in the wake of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming hormone therapies for transgender people who are under 18, they said.

In the June 18 ruling in U.S. v. Skrmetti, the court agreed with parts of the Sixth Circuit’s opinion on the law, allowing it to take effect, the ACLU said.

“Today the Supreme Court told Tennessee transgender youth and their families that they cannot access healthcare that is vitally important for a successful life,” Lucas Cameron-Vaughn, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Tennessee, said. “This ruling creates a class of people who politicians believe deserve healthcare, and a class of people who do not.”

Jones hopes this year’s Trans March in St. Pete will draw at least 1,000 standing up against this ruling and other laws across the U.S. that target the transgender community.

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“This year is a national activation,” they said, adding that after the court’s ruling “things changed drastically this year. It’s no longer local. It’s proud and free and part of national branding.”

TransNetwork is partnering with national organizations such as the ACLU, Lambda Legal, Human Rights Campaign, PFLAG and Planned Parenthood to promote the march and participate in it. Jones expects trans community members and allies from across Florida to attend.

“The march has grown, and it’s shifted,” they said. “It’s exciting. Planned Parenthood is bringing 200 people. We’ve never had a partner organization like that before. It’s a different feel this year.”
The response to the march is giving local trans activists and community hope, Jones added. “No matter what is happening in the news; no matter what is happening politically; no matter what steps are taken against us, our community is responding in purposefully connected action. We’re here and we’re united in joy and resilience to show who we are.”

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