D.C. Celebrates Trans Pride at the MLK Library on May 18
The day-long event features a resource fair, educational workshops, free HIV testing, arts and crafts activities, and an afterparty.
D.C.’s Trans Pride celebration will take place on Saturday, May 18, at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library from 9:30 a.m. to 5:15 p.m., with an afterparty to follow
Held annually, Trans Pride brings together transgender and nonbinary communities for a weekend of celebration, education, and fellowship.
The day-long event features workshops and discussion groups specifically tailored to topics pertaining to the transgender community.
The day’s various workshops focus on leadership development, writing and publishing, identity documents, tips for adults on navigating health care systems to access gender-affirming treatments, combating transphobia, activism around funding and government budget priorities, and the importance of centering racial and economic justice within the fight for trans rights.
A separate workshop, billed as a discussion and support group, is marketed toward parents of transgender youth, while another focuses on issues impacting the intersex community.
The event will feature a drop-in kids art studio for children aged 6 to 12, facilitated by representatives from Little SMYAL. Participants are welcome to drop by and take part in various arts and crafts activities. Another arts workshop will be specifically geared toward pre-teens and teenagers
“I think it’s important for people to get real education from trans-identified people,” says Mimi Hunt, a radio host for Inside Out LGBT Radio on WPFW and former president of the Equality Chamber of Commerce, and also one of the organizers of Trans Pride. “I think it’s important to see people in roles of leadership that are trans-identified and have a different background than what is always promoted about us.”
Registration begins at 9:30 a.m. on the library’s fourth floor, with two morning and two afternoon workshop sessions. Lunch is at 12:45 p.m., followed by the presentation of the Engendered Spirits Awards, which honor trans, gender-nonconforming and nonbinary individuals who have made significant contributions to the local community.
Throughout the day, the library’s fifth floor will host a resource fair highlighting the work of various corporate sponsors, local businesses, and community nonprofits. Whitman-Walker Health’s mobile HIV testing van will provide free testing outside the library from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
A half-hour closing ceremony with special remarks caps the day at the library, which is followed by an afterparty at the hotel Moxy from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
“The afterparty is a really big deal,” says Hunt, who is overseeing the party. “We have to actually have the fun outside of the learning. The party provides a place for people to feel safe and secure, and to shake it loose after a long day of education. Trans Pride is a group of people who care about others, who want to bring people together, and want to educate everybody about trans people — and then have a good time.”
Hunt says Trans Pride is important because it provides a platform for community members, offering an alternative to the way trans people are portrayed in the media or misrepresented by anti-LGBTQ politicians and conservative interests.
“If you’ve never met a trans person, how do you know that we can do everything you can do?” she says. “It’s always this warped version: we’re overly fetishized, we’re overly sexualized, always drilled down to private parts and looks and appeal.
“We haven’t been out here long enough, visibly in a positive light for people to understand. And I think maybe in a few years, maybe as more people work with, understand openly, love openly, show allyship [with us], we’re going to be [treated] just like everybody else.”
Trans Pride DC is Saturday, May 18, from 9:30 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G St. NW.
An afterparty at Moxy, at 1011 K St. NW, will follow from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
For more information about Trans Pride DC, visit www.transpridewashingtondc.org.
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