Laura Glesby Photos
Dorothy Cupariello attends her first protest...
...and Patricio ignites a chant for transgender rights.
Holding up a pink triangle sign — which in another time and place might have marked them for death — Patricio seized a moment of silence, cupped their hands over their mouth, and started a chant of their own among the hundreds of protesters gathered outside City Hall.
Their words — “Trans rights are human rights!” — spread through the crowd like fire.
Patricio was one of about 400 people who filled the Church Street sidewalk outside City Hall at noon on Monday, braving forceful winds. The rally emerged as part of a national effort to protest President Donald Trump’s administration on President’s Day — sparked at least in part by the 50501 Movement (standing for “50 protests. 50 states. 1 movement”), a massive online grassroots effort that originated on Reddit to coordinate mass protests of the Trump administration all throughout the country. The protests were advertised in advance as “Not My President’s Day” events.
With no featured speakers or identifiable organizational leaders, random individuals like Patricio found themselves yelling out chants for the crowd to organically echo.
People called out a wide range of pithy slogans: “Lock him up!”, “Gaza is not a resort!”, “Send Elon to Mars!”, “Hands off my healthcare!”, “Support civil servants!”, “Rule of Law!”, “Black Lives Matter!”, and “Save science!”
Each chant gained traction in one corner of the crowd, then spread like a wave through the rest of the protest. Every so often, someone would start a rendition of “God Bless America,” “This Land is Your Land,” or “We Shall Overcome.” Both an American flag and an LGBTQIA+ Pride flag rippled through the windy air.
Many attendees held up signs hearkening back to Nazi Germany, featuring crossed-out swastikas, the words “Never again,” and Holocaust-inspired poetry. One protester used a bullhorn adorned with a sticker of the infamous Nazi salute by Elon Musk, the wealthiest man on earth now acting as the country’s unelected, unratified government downsizer. “Hitler dismantled democracy in 53 days,” one sign recalled.
“I think what’s happening today is close to what happened in the 1930s,” echoed Dorothy Cupariello. “People said it couldn’t happen then.”
Patricio said they also see echoes of Nazism in the Trump-Musk era. “Recently, a bunch of neo-Nazis showed up” on State Street, they recalled. The event scared them, and made them wonder if history would start to rewind. “I am seeing us picked apart, community by community. First it’s trans rights, then it’s going to be gay marriage, then it’s about the ability to be gay,” they predicted.
Patricio said they chose to hold up a pink triangle, emblazoned with a version of a Holocaust remembrance slogan (“We never will forget”), in honor of how queer people have wrested back meaning from a sign of oppression. The triangle originated as a marker of “sexual deviance” — predominantly applied to gay men as well as trans women — whom Nazis enslaved and murdered in concentration camps. Queer activists later reclaimed the pink triangle, often flipping its orientation, including as part of the ACT UP movement for AIDS treatment.
“Now, we hold it as a symbol of safety,” said Patricio, adding that they want the symbol to retain that meaning of resistance in a time of fear.
Lucas Charles (with his brother, Cyrus): "Protecting kids means helping them to be themselves."
Among the youngest protesters at Monday’s event was 10-year-old Cyrus Charles, who said he had crafted his sign — declaring “Real Americans care for others” beside an American Flag — with help from his mom.
“The people who are coming in, not all of them are bad,” Cyrus said, referring to immigrants. “Most of them are amazing people.”
Cyrus’ brother, 14-year-old Lucas, pointed to Trump’s anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion crackdown. As a Buddhist, he said, he wants to keep having the right to practice his religion. “They believe they know what’s best for kids,” he said, but “protecting kids means helping them to be themselves.”
Monday’s protest was a relatively unfamiliar experience for some.
For Cupariello, Monday’s gathering was the first protest that she’d ever attended — one that motivated her, she said, to try protesting again. “It’s amazing!” she said. “We can’t stay silent.”
“I don’t usually go to marches because I’m a quiet person,” said Susan Clinard. But on Monday — with Trump’s promise to “take over” Gaza on her mind, alongside too many other developments to name — she wanted to be part of something louder. “It’s important to see neighbors and community coming together,” she said.
