Protestors joined together in Peoria Heights on Jan. 18 for the People’s March on Peoria.
A few hundred enthusiasts gathered at Peoria Heights Library and walked up Glen Avenue to Tower Park.

Peoria Proud put on the event in collaboration with the national People’s March, which mimicked the 2017 Women’s March on Washington, D.C. — two days before Donald Trump would be re-inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States.

There was a collective anxiety among the group as it shouted down the incoming administration with chants of “No dictators!” “No justice, no peace” and “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Trump has got to go!”

These people were not just lamenting their candidate’s loss in the election, which provided a collective calm as they bonded together. They are afraid of the impending loss of their rights and personal liberties.

“I say trans, you say rights! I say women’s, you say rights! I say immigrants, you say rights!” the crowd called out on a freezing, yet sunny day in the Heights.

Two days later, their forboding fears materialized during the first inauguration speech held indoors in 40 years — too cold for Trump crowd.

And the new president sent a shiver down the spine of at least half the nation within hours of taking office when he declared, “It will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.” He went further to say, “I will end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public life.”

Woke broke down in the 2024 election and Republicans rode to victory depicting transgender and non-binary people as freaks of nature, cheaters, and sexual predators.

Executive decisions

The president repeated his despicable claim from the campaign trail to worldwide audiences that “children are going to school a ‘He’ and coming back a ‘She’.”

He said his government will “Abolish all diversity, equity and inclusion ‘nonsense’ throughout the government and the private sector … we will have no men participating in women’s sports and transgender operations which ‘became all the rage’ will happen very rarely.”

Very disheartening to see the election’s “winners” dancing around and dunking on one of the world’s most marginalized communities.

What should have been a landmark achievement in civil rights when Sarah McBride (D-Del.) became the first transgender woman elected to Congress was almost immediately sullied when South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace started harassing her in the press and threatening her if she went into a women’s bathroom on Capitol Hill.

Psychotic. And scary.

Indeed, 26 states have either restricted or banned puberty blockers and certain types of hormone treatments for those under 18. Because, you know, teachers with the woke mind virus are grooming kids into identifying with the LGBTQ+ community. “All the rage,” the president said.

Facts of the matter

Preposterous. For example, a study published in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics found that only 0.1 percent of adolescents received gender-affirming care over five years. Researchers from Harvard analyzed data from more than 5 million patients (5 million!) from 2018-2022, and found “only 926 adolescents (less than a thousand!) with gender-related diagnosis received puberty blockers and 1,927 received hormones.” Furthermore, “no patients under age 12 were prescribed hormones.” Surgeries for minors are infinitesimal.

All the rage …

Doctors and teachers and parents — TikTok — are not turning children gay like it’s a “social contagion.” Rep. Mace insinuates this and the Republican used pornographic terms to describe transgender women — on TV — during a Congressional hearing.

“We must not let them continue to spread lies,” PFlag advocate Amy Orwig told the crowd at Tower Park. “Show up online, in break rooms, in board rooms. Focus on love.”

What will all this governmental misinformation lead to? This is how we treat citizens of the United States — or anyone? This is not America.

Fear factor

“Americans are at the edge of their seat wondering what will happen,” Peoria Public Schools Dist. 150 board member Greg Wilson emphasized as he spoke to the People’s Marchers. “A community that comes together assures love and equity and respect for all.”

The dire possibilities of how all this will affect federal employees — including military (will Trump ban gay and/or transgender people from serving?) and health care for all are frightening.

Like this message read from a listener on a podcast: “I am a transgender disabled military vet 100% disabled. … People need to understand what just happened to transgender vets just for context regarding Trump’s transgender orders.

“All my medical care is covered by the VA Health Care Services which is subject to the orders of the president executive branch. According to that order, Trump ended my gender-affirming medical care. I am assigned to a transgender gender clinic for gender-affirming care and a trans psychological care group. Trump’s order ends those programs. I don’t even know if my life-saving hormone replacement therapy prescriptions will be refilled this week

“I’m genuinely terrified. Many of us trans folks can’t survive without these medications. There will certainly be a rash of trans vets suicides over the next weeks and months. … We are terrified.”

How can we allay these fears, this evil? Bishop Mariann Budde ended her sermon at the inauguration prayer service with an appeal to the president, who was sitting in the front row at Washington National Cathedral.

“Let me make one final plea, Mr. President,” Bishop Budde said. “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in both Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives.”

The prayer leader of her D.C. diocese went on to defend immigrants as well while Trump scowled and Vice President JD Vance rolled his eyes. Other than addressing the president directly, though, it was a pretty typical Christian message. Trump later called Bishop Budde “nasty” and demanded an apology. A member of Congress said she should be deported (ICE agents are already rounding up immigrants as we read).

The late, great Don Jackson used to lament that the area civil rights icon found himself fighting the same battles he thought he had won years earlier.

“Make America great …” or “Set America back”? Bernice King, Dr. Martin Luther King’s daughter, illustrated to her audience on MLK Day in Atlanta.

Can America be great for the most marginalized? “The fight is much bigger now — a collective fight for progress,” Peoria Proud board member River Russell told the crowd in emceeing the proceedings in Peoria Heights. “Who cares about gas prices when lives are at stake?”

— Brian Ludwig is Managing Editor of The Community Word