Close to 100 LGBTQ community members and allies braved the cold on Jan. 18 to protest an event held on the Upper East Side by Moms for Liberty, a group known for aligning with far-right conservatives and promoting book bans on LGBTQ rights, race, and other topics.
“No hate! No fear! Trans kids are welcome here!” protesters chanted from the sidewalk and within a metal barricade on E. 74 Street in front of the Bohemian Benevolent & Literary Association (BBLA), where the so-called “Giving Parents a Voice Townhall” took place. The Jan. 18 event became shrouded in controversy during the time leading up to it after BBLA refused to cancel it in the face of pressure from political leaders and activists who voiced their opposition to Moms for Liberty’s presence in the city.
Moms for Liberty, which has made national headlines over the past year and has chapters across the country — including in parts of New York — is also known for its transphobia. A separate meeting planned for Jan. 16 was slated to focus on “gender ideology” and “how to defeat it,” according to a listing on the group’s site.
After requesting an interview with Moms for Liberty, Gay City News was turned away from the Upper East Side event by two men standing in the BBLA’s entrance who did not identify themselves. Inside the event, which was live streamed on the group’s Youtube channel, participants lamented that students are being taught to be “activists” and took jabs at the trans and queer community, all while promoting the use of state funding for charter and private schools.
Members of the panel included two members of Community Education Council (CEC) District 2, Maud Maron and Charles Love; Mona Davids of New York City Parents Union; Natalya Murakhver of Restore Childhood; and Wai Wah Chin of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York. Andrew Giuliani, the son of former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani and former GOP candidate for New York governor, was also in attendance. Disgraced ex-lawmaker George Santos was on hand, too, according to his post on X.
On the streets, protesters and local elected officials faced off against the group. With rainbow-colored signs in hand, activists displayed slogans such as “Hey moms, you have the liberty to leave — use it” and “Moms for Intolerance.” Next to them, organizers set up a table with books which they said Moms for Liberty had tried to ban in school libraries. The books were provided by the African American Policy Forum and included titles such as “Born on the Water,” a picture book associated with the 1619 Project. Folks also handed out shirts saying “knowledge is power, read banned books.”
Police officers repeatedly raised their voice as they cleared the sidewalk between the protesters and the venue, at one point keeping a reporter from Gay City News at a distance from where community activists were speaking.
One of the protesters at the front of the crowd, wearing a “Good Trouble” beanie and holding a sign reading “I’m the trans teacher you’re so scared of,” was Jo Macellaro, a New York City special education elementary school teacher. To them, being there was personal.
“As a teacher who is trans and has worked with trans and queer students, it is terrifying,” Macellaro said. “These people are trying to infiltrate our school boards in New York City; they are disrupting our CEC [Community Education Council] meetings, spewing their transphobic and queerphobic nonsense.”
Macellaro added, “I feel nervous being a trans teacher and I can’t imagine how our students feel when they don’t have the coping skills as an adult that I might have.”
Standing outside the BBLA, Maron, a CEC2 member and co-founder of the parent group PLACE NYC, told Gay City News that Moms for Liberty had a right to express their opinions.
“Whether you agree or disagree with Moms for Liberty, as a first amendment free speech person I think protesting to keep people from sharing their ideas makes very little sense,” she said. “ Whether you agree or disagree, people have the right to be here, to present their ideas, to share their thoughts.”
When asked whether she was affiliated with the group, Mauron said, “I am, at this point, a member of Moms for Liberty, yes I am.”
Jay W. Walker, an LGBTQ activist and member of Gays Against Guns, led the crowd in chants throughout the night. He told Gay City News he sees groups like Moms For Liberty as part of a backlash against the inclusion of Black, trans, LGBTQ and Indigenous history in school curriculums, and he doesn’t think the group will ultimately be able to establish a presence in the city.
“Their belief system is so out of whack with the way that New Yorkers think that they inevitably will fail,” Walker said. “Diversity has built the city as what it is, and the fact that these people are trying to create a Moms for Liberty here in New York is just anathema to any true New Yorker.”
Out gay State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal of Manhattan told the crowd that New York City should be a place where LGBTQ youth feel protected, “no matter their sexual identity or gender, or expression.”
“And to the CEC2 members who are New Yorkers who are on that panel up there, you should be ashamed of yourselves,” Hoylman-Sigal added. “There is no world where any New Yorker who purports to represent New York City families and children could be on this panel demonizing trans kids, and that’s why we’re here today.”
Alana Byrd, an activist and national field director for the organization Grandparents for Truth, said it was important for New Yorkers to make a public stand against Moms for Liberty.
“If we weren’t here all these people would just come in and think that they represented the majority of New Yorkers, and they absolutely do not,” they said. “We’re out here letting them know that they’re not welcome here. Hate is not welcome here, this is a place for love.”
