David Sepulveda Photo
(Updated) Operators of an anti-transgender-rights “free speech bus” succeeded in sparking a counter-demonstration in New Haven— without even showing up.
The “Free Speech Bus,” funded by the conservative advocacy groups Citizen Go, National Organization for Marriage and International Organization for the Family, was scheduled to stop in town this weekend as part of a tour through the East Coast.
Painted bright orange, the bus is emblazoned with the statements “It’s Biology: Boys are boys… and always will be. Girls are girls… and always will be.” The bus has prompted LGBTQ advocates to speak out against its message.
This was the message that two people vandalized in New York last Thursday, spray painting slogans like “Trans Liberation” across the sides. Protesters also keyed the bus and cracked windows with a hammer. That delayed the tour schedule, but also prompted the bus organizers and conservative allies to use the incident as a new exhibit in a campaign to portray the left as anti-free speech. The organizers also used the New York attack to raise money to get the bus back on the road.
New Haven protestors showed up on the Green to greet the bus Sunday afternoon with their own plan for obscuring the message.
Michelle Liu Photo
Occupying the Green’s Chapel and Church corner, they unfurled three tall blue tarps backed with wooden supports. “EVERY BREATH A TRANS PERSON TAKES IS AN ACT OF REVOLUTION,” read the largest one. “BLACK TRANS LIVES MATTER” and “TRANS LIBERATION” accompanied it on two smaller banners. The tarps towered over the people.
“Trans lives are not a dialogue,” read a press release handed out on the Green. “With a 41% suicide rate among trans individuals, the assaults on gender expression and identity are no matter of discourse.” (The release identified those gathered as members of several groups including the Industrial Workers of the World, Dragonfly Climate Collective, and workers, allies and friends.)
The brainchild of Reed Miller (pictured), a graduate student in environmental engineering at Yale, the tarps were intended to obscure the bus from view — had it shown up.
He said the tarps were pushback against the normalization of “that kind of transphobic hate” demonstrated by the bus. He added that by naming the bus “Free Speech,” its organizers were inviting attacks on it that would appear to be attacks on free speech. Which, he says, isn’t the case.
“Well, free speech prevents you from being censored by the government,” Miller said. “It doesn’t prevent you from consequences from people on the ground.”
“By blocking the bus, we can cover up their message,” he said. “We’re protecting the people of New Haven from its hateful message while putting forth a positive, empowering message.”
“The damage to the bus was much greater than expected. The bus will be back on the road against later this week. More details to come tomorrow,” bus organizer Gregory Mertz reported on Monday.
Sunday afternoon’s New Haven protest was personal for Miller Before leading the protestors — many of whom had gathered after hearing about the event on social media — in a series of chants, he announced that he had transitioned a decade ago.
When the bus failed to show, the counterdemonstrators rallied around the tarps — and the absence of the bus — as a cause for celebration.
“It’s just a provocation, right?” observed Andrew Dowe, who works at Yale’s Office of LGBTQ Resources, arguing that the entire bus campaign was “designed to pervert the notion of the freedom of speech.” Dowe said it was nice to see a message of positivity n the Green instead.
“And if those people had been there today in their bus I would’ve told them, ‘We hope you enjoyed your stay in the state of Connecticut,’” Chardonnay Rochelle, with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, told the crowd. “‘Please take all your hate with you as you leave.’”
Then Rochelle invited the crowd back downtown on Tuesday, where organizers are planning an extended rally for trans lives.