98 Photos of Trans Pride Power In Portland

The first annual Portland Trans Pride March was on the 45-year anniversary of Stonewall, and we'll never forget Stonewall was a police riot. This year we're celebrating five years of building community and marching for trans liberation on Pride weekend. We are proud of our roots and humbled by the legacy of our trancestors, Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and Storme DeLarverie, three courageous trans people of color who fought by every means necessary for their own dignity and for other trans and gender-nonconforming people.

This year's march comes on the two-year anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting and following the recent, unexpected deaths of several local community members. We are organizing in a national climate that is and always has been dangerously hostile to queer and trans people, especially those of us who are poor, disabled, and people of color. We are marching at a moment when black and brown immigrant children are being taken from their parents at our borders, when sex workers are being forced further underground by FOSTA-SESTA, and when the national incidence of hate crimes against Muslims, Jews, people of color, and queer and trans people is at its highest in more than a decade.

Still, and more than ever, we organize our community and take the streets with love in our hearts. In a world that would keep us small and invisible, we march to celebrate, claim space, and be visible and present to ourselves and each other. This is joyful resistance. It is just one event, just one day a year, but it is a vital part of how we build ourselves up and remember our collective power. The future is ours, and so is today.

-The 2018 Portland Trans Pride March Organizing Committee

Thanks to the Portland Trans Pride March Organizing Committee and photographer Denver David Robinson for the inspiring photos here.