‘Trans Day of Vengeance’ rally in DC canceled over ‘credible threat to life’ after Nashville school shooting
A transgender activist group has called off its planned Trans Day of Vengeance rally in Washington, DC on Saturday due to a “credible threat to life and safety.”
The Trans Radical Activist Network (TRAN), which organized the rally, announced Thursday that the threats were sparked by social media reactions to the name of the previously scheduled demonstration outside US Supreme Court.
The April 1 protest was planned weeks before Audrey Hale — who is transgender — gunned down three 9-year-old students and three adults in a private Nashville grammar school.
“The safety of our trans community is first priority. This threat is the direct result of the flood of raw hatred directed toward the trans community after the Tennessee shooting,” the coalition said on social media.
“Individuals who had nothing to with that heinous act have been subjected to highly serious threats and blamed only because of their gender identity. This is one of the steps in genocide, and we will continue our efforts to protect trans lives.”
The name of the group’s protest sparked outrage following the massacre, including from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) who claimed Trans Day of Vengeance represented the “threat of Antifa-driven trans-terrorism.”
Twitter removed thousands of tweets that promoted the event because “Vengeance’ does not imply peaceful protest.”
Groups associated with TRAN also briefly lost access to their accounts until they willingly removed the event posters, Our Rights DC said.
Despite the rally’s misleading name, Trans Day of Vengeance is a meme that has been used by the trans community for years and was never intended to encourage further violence, TRAN insisted.
“This protest is about unity, not inciting violence. TRAN does not encourage violence and it is not welcome at this event,” the group said on its website.
TRAN anticipates hosting another rally in the future “with a better theme.”
The group had condemned Monday’s shooting, as well as any “bad faith actors on the far right who are attempting to weaponize these tragic deaths to attack marginalized communities.”
The White House has made similar sentiments that trans people are “under attack” and are being wrongly blamed for one person’s actions.
CBS executives have banned the word “trans” during their coverage of the killings in a similar effort to shield the community from unjustified blame.
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