RuPaul’s Drag Race stars are joining forces with the Los Angeles LGBT Center and dozens of other LGBTQ+ organisations across California to stage a drag march on Easter Sunday, April 9. The protest, called Drag March LA, was organised in response to the overwhelming amount of recent anti-queer legislation in the US.
The all-ages event will begin at 11am on Sunday morning with a rally and performance in West Hollywood Park, followed by a march down Santa Monica Blvd beginning at noon. Over 1,000 people are expected to participate, including performers Honey Davenport as well as Kerri Colby, a queen who shared her personal journey as a transgender woman while competing on RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Additionally, over 40 organisations are registered to attend the drag march, including members of some faith groups who will be forgoing their usual Easter Sunday church services to show their support for the LGBTQ+ community. All Saints Church Pastor, Cara Quinn, described her congregation as “Jesus-centred, social-justice rooted, and about half queer-identifying.”
Other partner organisations in attendance will include the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, Gender Justice LA, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Sacramento LGBT Community Center.
Drag has been a defining element of LGBTQ+ history and culture, with march organisers saying it “has always been political and gender has always been policed.” The dress code for the event is ‘Sundays Best Drag’.
Oliver Delgado, Communications Director for the LGBT Center, compared the upcoming protest to the Stonewall uprising that defined the LGBTQ+ movement of the 1960s. “These weren’t tea parties. These were full-on moments of queer people being fed up and harassed, and fighting back,” Delgado said.
Los Angeles LGBT Center CEO, Joe Hollendonor, will be one of the main speakers leading the march. He described the event as, “…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”.
“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.”
This year alone, there are over 400 pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation on the books.
On Easter Sunday (April 9th), we’ll gather in our Sunday Best to show the world what we’re made of—and that we’re not going back.RSVP NOW https://t.co/6dc8e2vtl5 pic.twitter.com/4kNzZ6H5dZ
— Los Angeles LGBT Center (@LALGBTCenter) April 5, 2023
So far in 2023, over 450 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in the U.S. Many of these target trans youth and criminalise drag performances. March organisers promise to stand up against far-right legislators who are attempting to roll back LGBTQ+ rights.
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