Gender Liberation March Will Take To The Streets To Protest A Second Trump Presidency

Daniel Trujillo’s first month of junior year has been a “cakewalk.”

He’s in two different jazz bands and is a member of his school’s chapter of March for Our Lives chapter, a student-led organization promoting gun control. He dreams of studying music in college.

But getting there has not been easy for Daniel and his family ― especially in Arizona, where a barrage of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and rhetoric has threatened their sense of safety.

In 2022, state Republicans banned gender-affirming surgeries for minors in Arizona, though those procedures were already rare, and barred trans girls from playing on girls sports teams in schools. (A federal appeals court decision this week stopped the latter law from going into effect.)

Lizette Trujillo, Daniel’s mom, has traveled from their home in Tucson to Phoenix each legislative session over the last six years, taking time off work to testify in opposition to such anti-LGBTQ+ bills. Daniel has joined her on those trips since 2020.

“My husband and I are small business owners, and it’s given me the flexibility to devote my life in this really distinct way to fighting the trans legislation in our state. If I clocked the hours of free volunteer time, it’s significant,” Lizette Trujillo told HuffPost.

And when they aren’t traveling to the state Capitol, the Trujillo family is focused on cultivating a safe, accepting community in their city.

Daniel jokes that his parents have gone to lengths to make sure a day doesn’t go by where he doesn’t see another trans person. He has attended a queer Latinx camp. The family goes to a progressive church where they are greeted by Rev. Louis Mitchell, a Black trans pastor.

Lizette Trujillo leads a group for parents of trans youth and runs a