Bonnie Violet Quintana spent months organizing Idaho’s first official march for transgender rights and visibility during the Boise Pride Festival. She had participated in trans marches in other states before and hoped to have one in Idaho with a massive turnout, to show trans people in Idaho that they have broad support.
“As transgender people … we have to be very intentional about creating places and creating spaces and moments where we can really enjoy things,” she told the Idaho Statesman before the event.
Her vision became reality as hundreds of protesters filled the streets for the march.
The crowd held transgender and pride flags as they marched through downtown Boise on Friday night. They wore shirts and waved signs in support of trans and nonbinary people. “Protect Trans Kids,” read one shirt. “Pride is Still Protest,” read others, as the crowd marched down Eighth Street to cheers from servers and restaurant patrons lining the strip.
According to organizers, the march’s goal was to promote transgender joy, stand up against discrimination and create inclusive spaces.
“After such a rough few years for the trans community, we need some joy,” Liliana Rauer, 17, a Boise High student, told the crowd at the start of the rally as people cheered. “In classrooms, libraries, and legislatures across the country, our identities are the height of controversy. And I think we can all agree that it gets tiring.”
Rauer, who is transgender, described transgender people as strong, brave and caring. They refuse to give up when their identity is attacked, standing proudly on the streets of Boise and caring for others.
“We matter,” Rauer said. “Our stories matter. Our voices matter. We are trans joy.”
Cole LeFavour, a former Idaho legislator, spoke about their time in the Idaho Capitol, which has a “long tradition of very, very rigid binary gender roles,” they said.
Gender is a journey, LeFavour said as they addressed the crowd, and there is no one way to be a man, a woman, or non-binary. And then they described what it was like to undergo gender confirmation surgery in 2011.
“Gender affirming surgery ended my long struggle with my breasts,” they said. “And I felt free.”
Following the speeches, attendees marched to the Anne Frank Memorial, where they heard performers, including trans and nonbinary drag artists. March volunteers handed out carnations and small pieces of paper to write messages of love and hope to trans and nonbinary people in Idaho.
The march ended at the Boise Pride Festival in Cecil D. Andrus Park, where protesters placed the flowers with messages on a welded metal statue, which stood on a pedestal with the colors of the trans flag.
Idaho Continues to Pass Anti-LGBTQ+ Laws
Idaho has passed several laws in recent years targeting trans and nonbinary people. Since 2020, lawmakers have banned trans women and girls from participating in women’s sports, banned gender-affirming care for people under 18, and required teachers to get parental permission to use a student’s name or pronouns that differ from their birth gender.
Some of these laws have been the subject of lawsuits, but transgender and non-binary people have said the laws, and the culture they have created in Idaho, have left their communities living in fear and some considering leaving the state.
Standing before the crowd in a sequined white dress and white heeled boots, Quintana thanked the dozens of people who made the event possible. She acknowledged that transgender people have marched in Idaho before “to get us to this day,” but this is the first time the march has taken place during Boise Pride.
“This is a scary world for us,” she said. But people showed up Friday night — and the march will continue every year, she said, “until we don’t have to do it anymore.”
