A Pride Reflection from our Executive Director

by Jaelynn Scott, she/her
Executive Director

Happy Pride 2022!

Lavender Rights Project honors and lifts the contributions of our Black trans ancestors to our liberation. Black trans women and femmes were the mothers of Pride, instigators of Stonewall, Compton Cafeteria, and other movements across this country. This month we remember all of our LGBTQ, two-spirit, and gender diverse ancestors who were a steady hand of resistance that brought us our first wave of queer and trans liberation in this country.

I think we are all aware how important this Pride season is with the recent legislative and political attacks on trans youth, the use of trans bodies as a wedge issue by politicians, attacks on access to abortion for trans and nonbinary people, and the continued violence against trans people (especially Black trans women). The most impacted by recent legislation are the most vulnerable in our community: Black trans girls. However, we know they will not stop here, this is an attack on bodily autonomy and gender justice in general. We all risk losing access to critical services for healthcare, reproduction, and gender affirming care.

This Pride is our 2nd pride following the Black Lives Matter uprising in 2020. This Pride, and every Pride following this seminal moment in history, will forever be tied to the Black Lives Matter Movement. A movement led by the best of us, many of them Black LGBTQ young people. As time has passed and our bravery has waned, we are beginning to lose focus on the demands handed to us by these brilliant Black activists. Black LGBTQ+ persons are disproportionately affected by police violence, incarceration, and lack of mental health services. This Pride, I hope that we return to calls for community based 911 diversion, Housing First, and increased investment in Black-led movement building and social services.  

The Black community, and especially the Black LGBTQ community, have held celebration and resistance together. We laugh and mobilize, dance and mourn, fight and fuck. This country has never let us just celebrate. Mother Marsha, Miss Major, Stormé DeLaverie were embodiments of this joy and resistance. I truly wish and pray that this Pride you all find rest and renewal and moments to just celebrate. I wish for us time to dance our pain away, and that we all grow closer in love and in solidarity. I wish for us laughter and joy, but in the refrains of our laughter, let’s move together and fight like hell for trans youth, bodily autonomy, and Black Trans liberation.

Warmly and Fondly, 

Jaelynn Scott
Executive Director