Author: Gabriella Borter
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Several thousand people, mostly women, gathered in Washington on Saturday to protest the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, some wearing pink hats to mark a much larger protest against his first inauguration in 2017.
In Franklin Park, one of three starting locations for the “People’s March” that will wind through downtown, protesters gathered in a light rain to rally for gender justice and bodily autonomy.
Other protesters gathered in two other parks also near the White House, with one group focused on democracy and immigration and the other on local issues in Washington, before heading to the march’s final gathering at the Lincoln Memorial.
Police cars with their sirens on drove between the locations of the shots.
Protests against Trump’s inauguration have been much smaller than in 2017, in part because the women’s rights movement in the US fell apart after Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
Vendors were hawking #MeToo and “Love Conquers Hate” buttons and selling People’s March flags for $10. The protesters carried placards with the inscriptions “Feminists against fascists” and “People above politics”.
“It’s really healing to be here with all of you today in solidarity and togetherness, in the face of what is going to be really terrible extremism,” Mini Timmaraju, head of the advocacy group Reproductive Freedom for All, told the crowd as the events were shut down.
She said the good news is that abortion rights remain popular despite Trump’s victory, prompting chants of “We are the majority!”
Reproductive groups have joined civil rights, environmental and other women’s groups in organizing marches against Trump and his agenda as he prepares to take office on Monday. Trump won all seven of the battleground states and the November election.
