The first National Transgender Visibility March will hold the event a day early to accommodate a larger-than-expected crowd, organizers told the Washington Blade.
The march will now take place on March 31, final arrangements will be announced Febuary 5, according to veteran transgender activist Marissa Miller.
The lead organizer of a National Transgender Visibility March on Washington who initially scheduled the march for Monday, April 1 said organizers are now considering holding the first-ever national march for trans rights one day earlier on Sunday, March 31.
Miller, who’s listed on the march’s website as its senior strategist and director, told the Washington Blade that meetings last week with D.C.-based trans activists and LGBT allies prompted her and other organizers to view a Sunday as a potentially better day for drawing a greater number of people to a national march.
Miller is a nationally known HIV-activist advocating particularly for other trans women of color “Recognizing the social determinants of health that everyone is vulnerable to needs to be a bigger priority for those providing HIV care. We must recognize that these social determinants exist and place funding streams in place to counteract and address them,” she told Plus. “There is also a misconception within academia and health professionals that the existing systems have all the right answers, without even consulting with the ones whose lives are most impacted. We then base our interventions, research and treatment accordingly. “
“Our personal opinions, or even data-driven opinions, cannot always take priority over the day to day concerns of people who are HIV-positive. We have to allow the person to tell us how we can help them and in doing so, the concept of ‘treatment as prevention’ is shaped by individually tailored approaches that are person-centered and reduce harm and that’s what works she said then.
“We will ignite and initiate change at every turn and hope that each of you will stand with and join us in this effort when we take our movement to the streets of Washington, DC and other metropolitan areas on March 31, 2019. and April 1, 2019. This date will mark the beginning of our very first steps together but will definitely not be our last! We will meet every year on Transgender Visibility day and will make our voices heard locally, nationally and globally in solidarity, as one,” reads the mission statement on the National Trans Visibility March on DC website.
