In 2025, I have had the honor of documenting fierce and joyful solidarity with the transgender community at a number of protests and other actions in Chicago, Illinois. I\u2019ve seen a movement gain momentum in spite of the fires of anti-trans hatred being stoked by the Trump Administration. Across the moments captured in these photos, one thing is clear: We want Chicago to be a place trans folks can call home.<\/p>\n
My younger sister Louise came out as trans in the summer of 2023. As we prepared to head to a rock show on the evening of her twenty-seventh birthday, she told me she was going to wear a dress as a first public step of her newly discovered trans identity. I was so proud to be one of the first to hold this truth with her, and so proud to be seen with her that night. I immediately knew I had to get serious about protecting trans folks like her.<\/p>\n
Over the past two years, Louise has become one of my greatest teachers. Watching her transition has been beautiful; there\u2019s a brightness in her eyes now that had been missing for years. She has shown me, with tenderness and patience, how to better understand, love, and stand alongside trans people.<\/p>\n
Trump had been in office for less than a month when he targeted trans people with his\u00a0Executive Order against gender-affirming care<\/a>\u00a0for minors for gender dysphoria.\u00a0In response, trans advocates and their allies gathered for a rally to defend gender-affirming care at University of Illinois (UI) Health, which\u00a0canceled<\/a>\u00a0several gender-affirming surgeries after the Executive Order was released. As I approached UI Health on a frigid winter day, I could tell this wasn\u2019t going to be one of those polished downtown protests. This was an urgent, gritty demonstration that came together quickly.<\/p>\n Just two days after they learned that the hospital had begun canceling surgeries, trans rights activists from the Chicago chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Trans Up Front IL organized the rally to put pressure on UI Health to not comply in advance.<\/p>\n Our message to UI Health was clear:\u00a0We noticed when you started complying in advance. We noticed, and we\u2019re mad. We\u2019re mad because we know\u2014and you know\u2014that gender-affirming care saves lives.<\/p>\n During the rally, many passionate members of Chicago\u2019s trans community spoke about how vitally important gender-affirming care is. But I didn\u2019t weep until someone took the mic and, in a trembling voice, introduced herself as Jane. This was the first time, she told us, that she was introducing herself by this name\u2014the name that matches who she really is. The crowd went wild, affirming her, admiring her, celebrating her.<\/p>\n After the protest, UI\u00a0Health issued a\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0declaring that it would continue to provide gender-affirming care\u00a0in accordance with the\u00a0law. While the language of the statement didn\u2019t address why they had recently canceled gender-affirming surgeries, Chicago DSA and Trans Up Front IL considered it a win. Months later, Chicago activists are continuing to pressure hospitals in the area\u2014especially\u00a0Lurie Children\u2019s Hospital<\/a>, which paused gender care surgeries for trans patients younger than nineteen, and\u00a0Rush Medical Center<\/a>, which paused puberty blockers and hormone replacement care for new patients younger than eighteen\u2014to resume providing all levels of gender-affirming care.<\/p>\n Many of the photos I take at protests capture people experiencing big feelings:\u00a0people in the throes of anger, finally finding an outlet for bottled-up frustrations, raging in their demand for a better world. But there are also many gorgeous moments of sheer joy. I\u2019ve never seen more joyful protesting than at the\u00a0International Transgender Day of Visibility<\/a>\u00a0rally at Federal Plaza. I\u2019m most proud of my photos when I am able to immortalize these blips of happiness. Solidarity feels good. Being surrounded by thousands of people who give a damn about trans people is a great reason to smile, to laugh, and to believe the good guys just might win.<\/p>\n I used to go to protests alone.\u00a0This was a bad idea and a potentially dangerous one. If the protest encountered violent resistance, who would have had my back? But I\u2019ve since gotten to know some of Chicago\u2019s finest organizers, the sort of folks who show up to these events time and time again. I know many of the people in this photo by name. I\u2019ve even planned events and gotten beers with some of them. They\u2019re my friends in the fight. Joining DSA and learning how to organize alongside friends has transformed my experience of protests from one-off adrenaline dumps into public displays of the vital work my organizing community does every day.<\/p>\n As the trans folks I\u2019ve had the privilege to organize alongside know all too well:\u00a0It\u2019s all connected, y\u2019all. They know that feeling at home and safe in their bodies is related to Palestinians feeling at home and safe on their land. Solidarity is a hell of a thing. It places the trans flag and the\u00a0keffiyeh, two powerful symbols of people fighting for liberation, hand in hand. We fight against injustice wherever we see it. We\u2019ll keep doing that until we\u2019re all free.<\/p>\n As I march through the streets of downtown Chicago,\u00a0it\u2019s invigorating to remember the passionate people who have pounded this pavement over the decades, demanding more\u2014more justice, more equity, more freedom.<\/p>\n It was on these streets that May Day became International Workers Day in commemoration of the 1886 Haymarket Affair. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. came through here in support of the Chicago Freedom Movement. Folks with the courage to speak out against the Vietnam War took serious beatings here in 1968. Our current struggle for justice stands on the backs of those who fought before us.<\/p>\n Whatever the future may hold\u2014whatever progress we make, whatever regressions are forced upon us\u2014we will all work together to ensure that trans folks and immigrants have a home in Chicago. As one of my favorite songs proclaims, I believe in \u201csolidarity, forever<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0And the time to build it is now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2025, I have had the honor of documenting fierce and joyful solidarity with the transgender community at…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":195551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[108828,960,5386,1818,4180,108829,108830,1809,108832,108831],"class_list":{"0":"post-195550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-august-september-2025","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois","12":"tag-magazine","13":"tag-on-the-line","14":"tag-organizing","15":"tag-protest","16":"tag-transgender-rights","17":"tag-zach-caddy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115137765905914677","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}