Twenty-three people were arrested after chaos and violence broke out during competing protests in a Seattle Park.
A large crowd waving trans flags showed up to protest a conservative Christian rally by Mayday USA, a group touring the country to speak out against reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights with the slogan, #DontMessWithOurKids. The group wrote in a press release that it will not “stand idly by while the children of our nation are indoctrinated by a liberal, political, and sexual agenda that seeks to destroy their God-given identities.”
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Organizers of the counterprotest – called “Keep Your Bibles Off Our Bodies” – called the Mayday USA rally a “well-funded anti-trans, anti-queer event… provacatively being held in the hear[t] of the Queer community.”
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Each rally attracted about 500 people, according to the Seattle Times. As tensions grew, protestors began throwing objects at officers, who showed up in riot gear, and shoving them.
Over a period of several hours, police handcuffed multiple protestors while pinning them to the ground. The Times said the protest came amid new city rules permitting officers to use certain weapons like tear gas and pepper spray against disorderly protestors.
A statement from Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell (D) scorned the Mayday rallyers for intentionally trying to stir up trouble.
“Seattle is proud of our reputation as a welcoming, inclusive city for LGBTQ+ communities, and we stand with our trans neighbors when they face bigotry and injustice,” Harrell said. “Today’s far-right rally was held here for this very reason – to provoke a reaction by promoting beliefs that are inherently opposed to our city’s values, in the heart of Seattle’s most prominent LGBTQ+ neighborhood.”
“When the humanity of trans people and those who have been historically marginalized is questioned, we triumph by demonstrating our values through our words and peaceful protest – we lose our voice when this is disrupted by violence, chaos, and confusion.”
The mayor claimed that “Anarchists infiltrated the counter-protestors group and inspired violence, prompting SPD to make arrests and ask organizers to shut down the event early, which they did.”
He said he is “grateful” to those who made their voices heard without violence and directed the city’s parks department to “review all of the circumstances of this application to understand whether there were legal location alternatives or other adjustments that could have been pursued.”
“In the face of an extreme right-wing national effort to attack our trans and LGBTQ+ communities, Seattle will continue to stand unwavering in our embrace of diversity, love for our neighbors, and commitment to justice and fairness,” he concluded.
Mayday USA spokesperson Pastor Folake Kellogg told the Times the group was not trying to provoke anything with the rally’s location and that the city had actually rejected its permit request for a different park near Pike Place Market before they ended up at the LGBTQ+ neighborhood’s Cal Anderson Park.
Kellogg also criticized the protestors for using violence. “They say we don’t like people. We’re not the ones throwing things. We’re here to love Jesus.”
Counterprotester Kaitlyn Calkins wholeheartedly disagreed. “They like to cherry-pick quotes from the Bible,” Calkins said. “They say they want to protect children from people supposedly bad because of misinformation about trans people.”
BJ Cummings, who also attended to fight for her trans child, said the group “claims to be protecting children, when they’re actually putting them in harm’s way.”
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