The Los Angeles LGBT Center is organizing a rally on Easter Sunday, April 9, in Los Angeles to protest anti-LGBTQ legislation.
Billed as Drag March LA, the event kicks off at 11 a.m. PT at West Hollywood Park.
“The center’s Drag March is a nod to the origins of the LGBTQ+ movement, when the very first demonstrations started in opposition to moral policing and anti-crossdressing laws designed to impose a singular ideal of gender and sexuality onto citizens,” center CEO Joe Hollendonor said in statement Wednesday. “It is no mistake that today’s ‘Drag Bans’ are accompanied by a sweeping movement to ban access to gender-affirming care; we are fighting for our right to privacy, bodily autonomy, self-determination, and freedom of expression.”
Speakers will include Hollendonor, Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath and West Hollywood Mayor Sepi Shyne. The program will also feature performances by “RuPaul’s Drag Race” stars Kerri Colby and Honey Davenport. A resource fair will be on-site to connect attendees with local service providers and tips to activate legislative advocacy.
In a video released via the center’s Instagram, drag queen Lady Camden says, “I know that you agree with me when I say you deserve the right to love who you love and to do what you want with your body and to have the right to self-expression in whatever way that is, including drag.”
In the first three months of 2023 alone, more than 400 pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation were introduced or passed across the United States, most of them targeting transgender and gender nonconforming people, according to the center. In response to growing rhetoric supported by the Christian Nationalist movement deeming LGBTQ+ people “unsafe” for families, Drag March will be held on Easter Sunday with members of faith groups joining to show their support of the LGBTQ community.