I recall a few of us at a vigil for Christian Paige, on a freezing Chicago morning, right by the Picasso statue at City Hall. We started leafletting but were practically invisible. Then they drifted in, in twos and threes, and suddenly there was a crowd of trans people, and for that one morning everyone going into or out of Chicago City Hall knew the name “Christian Paige” and that she had been killed in their city.

Fast forward two decades. I was reading CNN when I came across a photo that stopped me cold: A nationwide rally had been called to protest the murders of Black trans women like Debbie and Christian, and in New York City alone thousands of people showed up, all in white t-shirts.

I stared at that picture for a long time. It still gives me chills.

Our protests today show that we won’t take the assaults on our lives lying down. They show we will stand up on our hind legs and fight back. We don’t need cisgender acceptance, but we do demand our basic human rights.