Twin Cities Trans March

Stevens Square Park, between Stevens and Second Avenues, 18th and 19th Streets, Minneapolis, MN (2007-2010)

A Photograph of the first Twin Cities Trans March in the old Gateway District. Image Courtesy of the Trans March MySpace Page.

“Flame Queens,” a butch lesbian, and people of color started the Stonewall Riots on Christopher Street in Manhattan, yet the contributions of these populations remain comparatively ignored by gay and lesbian majorities. Thus, and in the spirit of Stonewall, a small group of LGBTQ people assembled in the summer of 2007 to “resist gender binaries” and to “say no!” to the “prison industrial complex” and “corporate pride.”(1) The Twin Cities Trans March confronts the difficult specters of transphobia, racism, and the detriments of assimilation within the queer community. Over 100 community members—namely, students from the University of Minnesota—organized the event in one of Minneapolis’ most dense and transient neighborhoods. Thus, and perhaps to the surprise of organizers, the march began just as Twin Cities Pride Parade did 35 years before. However, the Trans March exists as a direct response to corporate sponsorship in the Twin Cities Pride Festival. Organizers also take advantage of online social networking—a tool that early Pride organizers worked without.

Stevens Square was a fitting choice for the first Trans March, as prewar apartment buildings surrounding the park were likely part of an early transgender settlement. This tract was the poorest of the old Gay Ghetto’s three sections.(2) Here, extremely effeminate men, masculine women, and ambiguously gendered people lived with difficult pasts of family abandonment/abuse, transitory occupations, and societal misunderstanding. Their presence is difficult to interpret; one comes across difficulty identifying these people as “transgender,” as the term gained prominence years after gentrification affected the neighborhood’s population.

Organizers of the Trans March chose two other public parks as starting points in 2008 and 2009, but their path remains the same—Hennepin Avenue, Minnesota’s queer main street. Their presence on the street reportedly met police harassment in its inaugural year—reminding us of our past, when “Stonewall was a fucking riot[!]”(3)

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(1)http://www.myspace.com/tctransmarch.

(2) Tretter, Jean-Nickolaus. Interview with the author, January 2008. Ridgewood Avenue was part of “Homo Heights” south of Loring Park, while Kenwood Hill received the title of “The Homolayas,” as many gay men visited family men in the mansions when their wives were away.

(3)http://twincities.indymedia.org/2009/jun/stonewall-was-fucking-riot-photos-minneapolis-trans-march-and-dyke-march

Part of Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN: 100 Queer Places in Minnesota History, (1860-1969), (1969-2010)