From Victory in the Supreme Court to Marching for All Trans Lives

June 26th, 2015

Today the Supreme Court made a historic ruling that gave all same sex couples the freedom to marry in the United States. As an organization that formed out of the struggle for marriage equality here in San Francisco just over ten years ago, API Equality – Northern California values the persistence, love, and resilience that it took to get us to this moment. We celebrate the individuals and families in our community who shared their stories with family, friends, and strangers, over and over again, in order to change hearts and minds about LGBTQ people and our lives and relationships. We honor the many LGBTQ API people who fought to be seen and heard in the name of dignity, fairness, and equal treatment. We would not be here without you.

Even as we celebrate this decision, we must also recognize that not all of our community members are free to celebrate. Many of our community members are still fighting to live with abundance and self-determination. We organize and mobilize because LGBTQ people are still denied adequate healthcare and housing. Transgender people are still targeted by public bathroom laws. Undocumented LGBTQ people still face threats and abuses through detention and deportation. Transgender and gender non-conforming people of color are still criminalized, incarcerated, and brutalized by the police.

There is so much work to be done to ensure that all LGBTQ people can live authentically and as their full selves. To us, recognizing the SCOTUS decision means continuing to do this work—the work of honoring leaders and lost community members, centering LGBTQ people of color in our movements, and showing up as organizers and allies within movements for justice and liberation.

Today, we will be showing up at Trans March, working to lift up the stories of transgender, gender non-conforming, and genderqueer API people and people of color. We hope you’ll join us as Asians and Pacific Islanders at Trans March, and as we continue to build power for queer and trans liberation.