An unlikely coalition of LGBTQ activists and environmentalists will come together in Washington DC tomorrow in Dupont Circle to amplify a message to Ivanka Trump, the daughter of President Donald Trump and now officially an unpaid employee of the federal government, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
In a true show of the times, these protesters are using an increasingly popular protest tactic: dance.
The event will be a moving, dancing, twerking parade beginning at Dupont Circle (colloquially known in the area as “the fruit loop”) and moving to Washington DC’s upscale Kalorama neighborhood, where both Trump and Tillerson live. It was organized by three LGBTQ organizations (WERK for Peace, the Queer Resistance, and Trans Women of Color Collective) and one climate organization (350 DC).
In January protesters gathered outside of Vice President Mike Pence's house in DC to stage a queer dance party, a radical act of fighting for your right to party.
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“Get ready to shake what your Mamma Earth gave ya and WERK it for climate justice!” organizers wrote in the Facebook event page. “Thankfully, Ivanka Trump, ‘BFF of the gays,’ supposed climate czar, and brand new employee of the Trump Administration has invited us to come and party in her neighborhood, leaving behind biodegradable glitter that will sparkle in the moonlight,” they wrote.
In December, Politico reported that Ivanka Trump might champion liberal issues, like climate change legislation and gay rights, but her acceptance of an unpaid role as advisor to the president has thrown those stances into question.
President Trump has aggressively pursued an anti-environment agenda, okaying the controversial Keystone Pipeline, promising to eviscerate President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, and filling his cabinet with climate change deniers, like head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Scott Pruitt.
The Trump administration has also turned back the clock on LGBTQ rights, removing LGBTQ categories from the US census, rescinding an executive order that enshrined workplace regulations that benefit LGBTQ workers, and overwriting an Obama-era letter that protected trans students ability to use the bathroom that conforms to their gender identity.
Read more: Jubilant LGBTQ Protestors Throw Dance Party Outside Mike Pence’s House
Ivanka Trump has done little to slow this steamrolling of progress. Her silence on a variety of social issues — including climate change, LGBTQ rights, and women’s rights — has garnered her the title of “complicit,” most recently spoofed in SNL’s fake ad that aired last Saturday.
So, protesters are taking it to Ivanka’s backyard in an attempt to force the issue, and spread awareness.
“The reality is that the people most affected by the administration’s bad climate decisions are our most vulnerable friends: our poor, working class, native, trans & POC siblings,” event organizers wrote. “We must put our bodies on the line for our earth and for all who depend on its resources.”