LGBT community to join in Saturday’s SlutWalk San Diego
SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Alliance for Marriage Equality (SAME) is inviting the LGBT community and supporters to join them as they participate in this Saturday’s SlutWalk San Diego.
SlutWalk San Diego is part of national movement that hopes to bring people of all backgrounds together to take to the streets to spread the message that victim blaming in situations of sexual violence will not be tolerated. Organizers hope that words like “slut” will no longer shame victims into silence.
SlutWalk began in Toronto as a response to a police officer who told college students at an assembly that if they did not want to be raped, they should not “dress like sluts.”
The event will start at 1:30 pm at San Diego City Hall, 202 C Street, with the walk beginning at 2 pm. The march will follow First Avenue to Broadway to Fourth Avenue, where a rally will be held in Horton Plaza Park.
SAME said that lesbian, gay, bisexual and especially transgender people are particularly vulnerable to acts of violence and sexual assault.
“It is especially important that we join in the feminist voices speaking out against sexual assault and victim-blaming against targets of sexual violence,” SAME said in a news release.
SAME added that their vision is the same as that of SlutWalk: “We believe in the simple concept that everyone deserves to be respected for who they are.”
While SAME was created in late 2008 following the passage of Proposition 8, the organization is committed to fighting for LGBT and human rights.
Previous actions held by SAME have included a speak out against LGBT violence held in North Park in response to a series of drive-by paintball attacks against LGBT individuals throughout Hillcrest, and an April 30th rally in support of a transgender woman brutally beaten inside a McDonalds in Baltimore while attempting to use a female restroom.
SAME is encouraging those who wish to join them in SlutWalk to gather at 1 pm at City Hall. The organization will be carrying a series of rainbow flags during the march.
To RSVP for SlutWalk San Diego, click HERE.
For more information about SAME, click HERE.
