Executive Director of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, J. Bob Alotta, as one of the few queer speakers, urged crowds at the Women’s March on Washington on Saturday to unite in the fight for justice.
“We may be here because of someone or something we did not choose – but today – we did choose to show up, to stand up, to march, to gather together. And that is what this time is about – what we are going to choose,” she said.
Hundreds of thousands of women gathered in Washington to protest the inauguration of President Donald Trump. A range of speakers and performers cutting across generational lines including Alotta rallied near the Capitol before marchers made their way toward the White House.
“We do not and will not choose one neighbour over another, we do not and will not choose to deny our queerness, and our lesbian, gay or trans selves in order to march for women or a country for all of us; we do not and we will not deny the beauty and power and joy in our blackness and browness as if it will make us safer”, J. Bob Alotta declared.
Alotta stressed that our values will be tested over the next four years, and emphasised that the fight for equality and commitment to radical love cannot end after the March. She urged the crowd to commit to an uprising of love, and keep working together to fight and present a united front against the barrage of policy and public sentiment that we will endure under the Trump Administration.
“We are not a fluke, this is not a singular phenomenon, we are fantastic and fabulous and this is only the beginning. No this is not a one off. This, is an uprising of love. We are an uprising of love,” she concluded.
