Sophomore Harper Hopkins organizes protest of anti-transgender bus tour

Boston-area supporters of the transgender community protested the arrival of a bus spreading an anti-transgender message along the East Coast on Thursday, March 30.

The bus, branded the “Free Speech Bus,” began its Boston route at the Boston City Hall, followed by the Massachusetts State House and a midday stop in Cambridge, near Harvard University, according to sophomore Harper Hopkins, who organized a group of the protesters.

The bus is sponsored by multiple anti-LGBTQ organizations, including CitizenGO, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and the International Organization for the Family, according to the NOM website.

The vehicle’s sides displayed the slogan, “It’s Biology. Boys are boys ... and always will be. Girls are girls ... and always will be. You can’t change sex. Respect all.” The text was accompanied by male and female figures representing a gender binary, with the letters “XY” and “XX” positioned above each, respectively.

Hopkins organized a delegation of protesters through a Facebook event which was subsequently shared with other Boston residents through the Queer Exchange Boston Facebook page, according to Hopkins.

Boston was the beginning of a restarted Free Speech Bus tour, following its original start in New York City on March 23, when it was vandalized by protesters. As a result of this vandalism, CitizenGO announced on Twitter that its planned Boston visit on Monday would be moved to Wednesday and Thursday so that the bus could undergo repairs.

CitizenGO’s Twitter feed then claimed that the Free Speech Bus would spend two days in Boston, but the bus never appeared publicly on Wednesday and only seemed to be in the Boston area on Thursday.

On both days, Hopkins and other members of a reconnaissance group organized through Facebook attempted to track down the bus, finding nothing on Wednesday and discovering it parked at Boston City Hall at around 10:20 a.m. on Thursday, according to Hopkins.

Several protesters attempted to prevent the bus from moving by standing in front of it, but dispersed after those on the bus threatened police action, according to Hopkins.

Afterward, Hopkins said that 12 to 20 people protested at the Massachusetts State House. That number appeared to rise to about 30 to 40 people at the bus’ stop in Cambridge, outside Harvard.

Other groups were present, including members of the Harvard College Office of BGLTQ Student Life, who handed out fliers in support of the transgender community.

At the Cambridge stop, NOM spokesperson Joseph Grabowski exited the bus to speak with protesters and pedestrians. According to Hopkins, protesters placed lunch meat under the bus’s tires, scratched the bus and wrote on it with Sharpies. In addition, some protesters chanted slogans, such as “No platform for hate speech” and “When trans lives are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back.”

Eventually, transit police arrived and informed the bus driver that the bus was parked illegally at a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority bus stop, Hopkins said.

Grabowski, speaking to a member of the crowd, said that, while the social idea of gender is not based in biology, biological anatomy should inform lawmaking.

“What you can make distinctions about are XX and XY chromosomes and their expression in biology. Not necessarily neurology, which can be influenced by all sorts of circumstances including environment and how a person is raised,” Grabowski said. “But expressed in biological anatomy, we can make useful distinctions about that and that’s a better standpoint for public policy and law.”

Nat, a transgender woman who protested the bus in Cambridge and preferred to only give a first name, saw Grabowski’s platform as a danger to transgender people.

“They’re going around with this message, saying girls are girls, boys are boys, based on what genitalia you were born with," Nat said. "What that does is it erases trans people, it basically tells people around here that we aren’t real or our lives aren’t valid and that we’re crazy. That we’re making it all up in our heads and that we want to get in the bathrooms and sexually assault people."

Another protester, Herbie Simon, pointed to one of Grabowski’s messages denouncing the use of hormone therapy by transgender people.

“[The use of hormones] is not promoting some trans agenda, it's not promoting that everyone should get their sex changed. [There are] just people who would feel 100 percent more comfortable in a different body or a slightly adjusted body with the hormones that make them look more like what they want to look like,” Simon said. “People have every right to do that, they should have every right to do that, and this [stance] is promoting hate. It's promoting fear. It's the kind of fear that causes trans kids to commit suicide.”

Hopkins said the bus’ decision to end its public appearance in Boston by the early afternoon reflected the efficacy of protest efforts.

“[The bus] had a lot of daylight left and they didn’t use it, and that says good things about our efforts,” Hopkins said.