On Donald Trump’s First Full Day in Office, Millions Showed the President That ‘Dissent Is Patriotic’
As inauguration ceremonies commenced for President Trump, I was aboard the Amtrak 2117 from New York to Washington, D.C. Almost everyone on the train was female, and there was no need to ask anyone where they were going. The train was a river of pink pussy hats. Amy Schumer was in the next car over, with a running commentary on the inaugural, which a fellow passenger was streaming.
When we arrived in Washington’s Union Station, our pink hats met a smattering of red caps. Trump supporters, fresh from inaugural ceremonies, roamed the corridors in their trademark “Make America Great Again” hats.
To be sure, Friday, January 20, was theirs. But Saturday, January 21, would be ours.
Earlier in the week, the ACLU, one of 10 sponsors of the march, had sent 5,000 posters, 10,000 buttons, 1,000 sashes, and two 8-foot tall Statue of Liberty cutouts to an ACLU colleague’s house, which took up the better part of her living room.
Given the litany of civil liberties violations proposed by the Trump administration, there were any number of core ACLU messages we could have used — immigrants’ rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, First Amendment rights, reproductive rights — but we settled on two that encompassed it all: “We the People” and “Dissent is Patriotic.” Our mission was to get the swag to the march and distribute it to the protesters.
On Friday evening, about 15 ACLU staffers and a dozen or so volunteers from across the country convened at my colleague’s house, and for several hours, we pinned sashes and stuffed bags with protest swag as we mapped out positions around the march and assigned volunteers to positions.
ACLU staff and volunteers pinning sashes on Friday evening.
We tested our walkie-talkies — we rented them fearing cell service might not work — and assigned them to the volunteers. At some point, we sent a couple of people to Target to buy rubber bands, more bags, twine to tie up posters, and packing tape. Sometime after 9 p.m., we loaded it all into the nine-passenger van we rented earlier in the day. When it didn’t all fit, we summoned two back-up cars.
Then we all dispersed to our various friends’ couches (guestrooms, if we got lucky) and met up again at 5 a.m. at our assigned positions. I was at our makeshift headquarters, a conference room at the Hotel George at E and First St., N.W. From there, we took turns running supplies of posters and swag bags to volunteers in Lower Senate Park, and from there, to several distribution points around metro stations and streets leading to the march.
By 6:30 a.m., our positions were swarming with marchers, eager for buttons and signs. Some were young, little girls who had come with their mothers. Some were old. There was an 83-year-old in a wheelchair. Some were local, from the District, but others had come from Ohio, Michigan, Vermont, and even California. All were united in opposition to the proposed policies of this administration.
By 7 a.m., we had run out of sashes. Requests came in over the walkie-talkies: “We are out of everything but signs at Independence and Fourth, over.”
“Copy that. We’re coming with more, over.”
Text messages came in: “We need more sashes.”
“We’re out of sashes.”
“Then bring buttons. All the buttons in the land!”
Our supplies disappeared as fast as we could get them to distribution points, in part because we wound up passing them out to people as we were en route.
By 9:30 a.m., we had run out of everything. I was stuck, along with three colleagues, in a crowd sandwiched between the Museum of the American Indian and the Mall, which had been fenced for the previous day’s ceremonies. We were crammed so tightly together that nobody could move.
For an hour, we stood there, a sea of pink pussy hats and a beautiful array of motley, homemade signs. “Viva la Vulva!” proclaimed one. “Love, Kindness, Respect,” read another. And there were many of our own, “We the People” and “Dissent is Patriotic.”
Marchers preparing for the rally early Saturday morning.
The chants took hold organically. “Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here,” one chant went. Then, “We need a leader, not a racist tweeter.” And then, “Black. Lives. Matter.” The crowd broke out into song, belting Woodie Guthrie’s, “This Land Is Your Land,” more than once.
We had planned for the many dozens of ACLU staffers and volunteers to meet up and march together as a contingent behind a banner, but the permitted space filled up so quickly that we found ourselves scattered in different locations and unable to move.
The walkie-talkies sputtered. “Attempting to join you at Constitution and Fourth, but unlikely. Unable to move, over.”
WhatsApp buzzed: “I’m stuck on Seventh and Independence, crowd is dangerously tight. Advise to stay back.”
“I have the banner but can’t get back to Fourth and independence.”
A text message came in from a friend at the march in New York. It was a photograph of marchers. “From river to river,” it read.
Word came that the actual march in D.C. had to be called off, because the route was too crowded. There was simply no room to march. Eventually, the march proceeded but not along the planned route.
It was only later in the day that we learned about the turnouts in Chicago and Los Angeles and that there were more than 500 marches across the United States and more than 100 international marches.
On Donald Trump’s first day in office, millions came together to send a message that we will not stand by silently if his administration threatened our freedoms. Taken together, the marches may have been .
Not bad for day one. Stay tuned for more.
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Press ReleaseOct 2024
LGBTQ Rights
+2 Issues
At Supreme Court, Tennessee Seeks to Expand Reach of Dobbs to Ban Health Care for Transgender YouthAt Supreme Court, Tennessee Seeks to Expand Reach of Dobbs to Ban Health Care for Transgender Youth
WASHINGTON – In their brief defending the state’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has asked the Supreme Court to expand its ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and allow the state to target transgender people’s autonomy over their own bodies, too. In U.S. v. Skrmetti, three Tennessee transgender youth and their families are challenging a state law that prohibits medical providers from prescribing medical treatments to transgender youth, such as puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapies, that are allowed for minors who are not transgender. Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Tennessee, Lambda Legal, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, the families argue that the ban violates their Equal Protection rights under the 14th Amendment. In the brief filed today, Tennessee relies on the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Whole Women’s Health in an attempt to justify its ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender people. The brief cites to Dobbs at least 10 times in sweeping arguments to justify government sex discrimination. “We’ve seen just how far extreme politicians will push to deny us our reproductive freedom, from banning abortion to threatening IVF to even threatening to put doctors in jail for providing emergency care, with deadly consequences for women’s lives,” said Jennifer Dalven, director of the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project. “The same politicians who are trying to control women have now set their sights on transgender people and their families and are trying to control their bodies and lives. Allowing politicians to continue down this road could hold severe implications for the freedom of all people to decide what is right for their own body.” Tennessee claims that their ban on gender-affirming care does not discriminate on the basis of sex even though it bans minors of one sex from accessing health care it allows to members of another sex. A transgender girl is barred from taking doctor-prescribed estrogen because Tennessee considers it “inconsistent” with her birth-assigned sex of male but a cisgender girl with a birth-assigned sex of female is permitted to take estrogen for any purpose including to affirm her female gender identity. “Since this Project’s founding by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, we have adamantly challenged efforts to limit who we can be based on our gender or ability to bear children,” said Ria Tabacco Mar, director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project. “Tennessee’s attempt to limit who young people can become based on their sex shares a through-line with our nation’s history of subjugating women in the name of biology. The fight for each of us to live fully and authentically must include trans people. There is no ‘transgender’ exception to the U.S. Constitution.” In April 2023, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Tennessee, Lambda Legal, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP sued the state of Tennessee to block S.B. 1, which prohibits medical providers from prescribing medical treatments to transgender youth, such as puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapies, that it exempts for minors who are not transgender. Following a decision by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, S.B. 1 took effect in July 2023. Since 2021, 24 states have banned hormone therapies for transgender youth. “Laws like Tennessee’s are not benign regulations of medical care; they are discriminatory efforts to exclude transgender people from the protections of the Constitution,” said Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. “These bans represent a dangerous and discriminatory affront to the well-being of transgender youth across the country and their constitutional right to equal protection under the law.” -
Press ReleaseSep 2024
Women's Rights
Civil Rights Groups Tell Federal Appeals Court that Protections for Pregnant Workers Cover Abortion CareCivil Rights Groups Tell Federal Appeals Court that Protections for Pregnant Workers Cover Abortion Care
WASHINGTON, D.C. - On Friday, a broad coalition of labor, workers’ rights, and gender justice organizations — led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Arkansas, and the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) — filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in support of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) regulations implementing the landmark Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), including the regulations’ explicit protection for workers who have abortions. The PWFA, which took effect last year, was the culmination of a decade-long campaign to secure access to reasonable accommodations for workers with temporary limitations caused by “pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions.” The EEOC’s regulations provide comprehensive guidance to workers, employers, and the courts about the statute’s range of protections, including job-protected time off for medical treatment and recovery. The amicus brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit supports the EEOC in a challenge by 17 red states that are trying to block the PWFA regulations’ coverage of accommodations for abortion-related care. In June, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas dismissed the states’ challenge, and the states appealed to the Eighth Circuit. Their appeal includes a request that the Eighth Circuit issue a preliminary injunction of the regulations’ abortion provisions. The ACLU-NWLC brief details the federal law’s longstanding ban on discrimination against workers who obtain abortions – protection the PWFA intended to continue. The brief also documents the accounts of workers whose health and jobs were put at risk when their employers denied them accommodations, including time off, for abortion care. Such accounts illustrate the urgent need for clarity with respect to the PWFA’s coverage of abortion-related accommodations, and the devastating medical and financial consequences if such accommodations are denied. “Abortion has long been recognized as part of the full spectrum of workers’ pregnancy-related needs that are protected by the law, ” said Gillian Thomas, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s Women's Rights Project. “The states’ challenge has created uncertainty, and seeks to deprive workers of essential, job-protected time off for abortion care, posing significant health risks and leading to forced pregnancies. The EEOC regulations are vital to ensure pregnant workers don't have to choose between their health and their jobs.” “Extremist politicians are demonstrating repeatedly their willingness to risk women’s health to advance their anti-abortion agenda,” said Gaylynn Burroughs, vice president for Education and Workplace Justice at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC). “Let’s be clear: abortion care is pregnancy-related care, and stripping essential protections for abortion from the PWFA would endanger the health and economic security of pregnant workers.” “The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and its regulations provide a lifeline for workers who need accommodations during the most critical periods of their lives. Attempting to strip away these protections, particularly for abortion-related needs, is an affront to the rights and well-being of pregnant workers,” said John Williams, legal director of the ACLU of Arkansas. “All people in all aspects of pregnancy, including abortion, should be treated with the care and consideration they deserve. We stand firmly with the EEOC in defending these essential protections.” A copy of the brief can be found here. -
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Press ReleaseJul 2024
Women's Rights
LGBTQ Rights
ACLU Condemns House Measure Against Department of Education Title IX RuleACLU Condemns House Measure Against Department of Education Title IX Rule
WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass H.J. Res. 165, a Congressional Review Act resolution disapproving of the U.S. Department of Education’s final Title IX rule providing guidance to schools on protecting students from sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, anti-LGBTQ discrimination, and other forms of sex discrimination. Mike Zamore, ACLU National Policy and Government Affairs Director, had the following response: “Today’s vote to completely repeal the Title IX rule takes a sledgehammer to the government’s ability to ensure that all students have the opportunity to learn free from sex discrimination and harassment. Stripping critical civil rights protections from LGBTQ students and students who are pregnant and parenting - as this resolution would do - is something that all members of Congress should strongly oppose. This is also not how Congress should act to protect the rights of students who face disciplinary action under Title IX because passing this resolution would prevent future rulemaking to ensure fair processes in school disciplinary proceedings.” The ACLU’s letter urging a “No” vote on H.J. Res. 165 can be found here: /documents/aclu-urges-no-vote-on-h-j-res-165 The ACLU’s statement on the final Title IX rule can be found here: /press-releases/155090