Trans Activist: Boston Police Abusive at Protest

from Advocate.com



A transgender activist says she was abused by a Tea Party member and a police officer while protesting a Tea Party rally in Boston Sunday and that fellow protesters were received rough treatment as well.

The Tea Party’s Patriots’ Day rally on Boston Common featured antigay speakers such as minister Scott Lively, MassResistance director Brian Camenker, and former Boston Herald columnist Don Feder, along with some focusing on economic and other issues. At least five groups demonstrated in opposition to the Tea Party message, including Occupy Boston’s Queer/Trans Direct Action Working Group, the website Back2Stonewall reports.

An altercation developed after Tea Party members grabbed a banner carried by one of the other opposition groups, Antifa, and protesters from Occupy Boston and others came to Antifa’s defense, a trans activist with Occupy Boston (pictured) told Back2Stonewall. Two of her group’s members were arrested, and as she followed them, a Tea Partyer knocked her wig off, claiming his hand slipped. Then, she said, a police officer came up and shoved her and said, “OK, take your shit and get out of here.”

“I said to him ‘Don’t shove me,’” she continued in an email to the site. “He then said ‘Don’t shove you!?’ and then choked me, for a short period of time. My comrades reacted pretty quick, taking those pictures, getting his badge number, etc. He was rough with several other people, grabbing one of my comrades’ phone out of his hand when he tried to take a picture, etc.”


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