My Speech at the Trans March Rally on Monday, July 13, 2026

My name is Jason Wyman (aka Queerly Complex), and I am a Steering Committee Member of the San Francisco People’s Budget Coalition and longtime supporter / member of Trans March. 

I want to start with a quote by Frantz Fanon from Wretched of the Earth. 

“Once colonialism has realized where its tactics of social reform are leading, we see it falling back on its old reflexes, reinforcing police effectives, bringing up troops, and setting a reign of terror, which is better adapted to its interests and its psychology.” 

I share this because what came on the THURSDAY BEFORE law enforcement brutalized our community, and specifically our Trans Kin, Friday at Trans March, Saturday at Stud Alley, and even on Sunday as vendors closed up shop at the end of Pride was: 

We won back funding for lifesaving services for our trans and queer kin. That’s right: We WON right before the state unleashed its brutality. 

Our win was not our win alone. It was a win that took three years of building an intersectional coalition advocating not for organizations but for the services and material conditions that improve our daily lives. It came after great losses two years in a row that hurt our communities through budget cuts and also challenged us to learn and grow our tactics and solidarities. It came months after our coalition went to our communities and neighbors and educated one another about the San Francisco budget process and built a People’s Budget that demonstrated San Franciscan’s value funding public health, culture, housing, libraries, parks, homeless services, and care more than funding law enforcement. It came weeks after the Mayor was shouted down and embarrassed at his City Hall Pride Flag Raising, at his Pink Triangle speech, and at his appearance at Cliff’s Variety’s Anniversary Party; all disruptions lead by trans and queer activists and neighbors. It came one day after we, the people of San Francisco, restored funding for trans services and HIV care. 

We are winning and the state repression we face is a RESULT of our winning because the state is terrified of our collective, intersectional power. 

I am standing here today in solidarity with Trans March because it builds upon and continues a legacy of trans and queer San Franciscans not just fighting back but demanding change. I have participated in Trans March’s safety trainings, political education, and movement building. And I believe another world, a world after the abolition of prisons and policing and genocide, is not only possible but necessary for our human survival. Its seeds are present in these demands, and when we win them we win them, by, with, and for Trans People for All Peoples. 

I’m reminded of two quotes from Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment & the Prison Industrial Complex. The first is from Bo Brown, who I had the pleasure of meeting through a trans and queer intergenerational filmmaking camp. Bo said, “…if we want people to pay attention to us and take us seriously, we have to walk the walk. We have to do work and then we have a right to demand, and we should be strong in those demands. And we all know that organized queers have never been known to be the quiet ones.” 

And Dylan Rodriguez asks us, “How do we protect ourselves, each other, and practice justice without getting the state involved?” 

Trans March as a formation and a movement helps Us All answer this question through practice and praxis. And our Demand for Community Safety free from policing are rooted in our legacies and histories as Trans and Queer peoples, who do not remain silent in the face of political repression, oppression, domination, and genocide. 

There is a motto we have at the People’s Budget that guides our collective actions, one that I am queering today. I invite Us All to shout it from our bellies so that it takes root deep within our beings. 

Every time we fight, we win! 

Every time we disrupt, we win!

Every time we care for each other, we win!  

Now, let’s keep organizing, demanding, fighting, and caring for Us All. 

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