Trans Day of Visibility and Easter share a date in 2024 – and right-wingers are losing their minds
Transgender Day of Visibility falls on the same day as Easter Sunday this year. (Getty)
A county in the state of Virginia has voted to observe Transgender Day of Visibility this year on Easter Sunday – and right-wing critics are very, very mad about it.
Transgender Day of Visibility is a fixed, annual celebration that occurs on March 31 every year. This is the same date that Easter Sunday falls on this year.
It’s important to note that absolutely no one has “decided” to hold Transgender Day of Visibility on Easter Sunday: the latter is a moving feast day which can fall on any Sunday between March 22 and April 25.
In Northern Virginia, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted (9-0) to proclaim their support for Transgender Day of Visibility, even though it clashes with Easter Sunday. As you can imagine, not everyone is happy about the decision.
Fox News reported that Stephanie Lundquist-Arora – the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network, an organisation that works as “a private online forum empowering conservative women to inspire, influence, and impact their communities” – called the decision “reprehensible.”
Other locals complained that Fairfax County was “hijacking Easter.”
Lundquist-Arora wrote for the Washington Examiner, a conservative news outlet based in Washington, that Fairfax County’s supervisors are turning the “holiest days into a celebration of an ideology that undermines the church’s core convictions.”
“Members of the board also used their illogical decision to hijack Easter as an opportunity to celebrate the governing body’s ideological homogeneity,” Lundquist-Arora continued.
She claims that the supervisors are using their “illogical decision to hijack Easter.”
“Fairfax County School Board, for example, has designated June as LGBT Pride Month and October as LGBT History Month. The community gets two full months of celebration in our district’s schools. Apparently, that just wasn’t enough.”
Despite the right-wing criticism, the decision marks a distinctly positive move forward for the state of Virginia.
“I’m just very happy that we’re recognizing a community that has too often been pushed into the shadows and celebrating yet another community within our diverse tapestry here in Fairfax County,” Democrat Supervisor Jimmy Bierman said during the vote, Fox News reported.
Bierman was one of nine members who requested the proclamation. He added he desires to “make sure that everybody who’s a part of our community feels welcomed, feels loved and feels empowered.”
This move also arrives amid conservative states enacting anti-trans laws restricting medical access from minors – this has been the case in Idaho, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Alabama and Florida.
It’s not the first time that Fairfax County has been in the headlines over its pro-trans stance. Earlier this month, The Washington Post reported that a Fairfax County Public Schools student was suing the school board over a trans protection policy.
The lawsuit, filed by the conservative group America First Legal, alleges that protecting the rights of transgender students “violates the rights of others.”
The policy, which allows students to use facilities that match their gender identity and requires the use of a student’s chosen pronouns and name, was said to be at odds with the unnamed student’s religious beliefs.
