Written by Gabriella Porter
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Several thousand people, most of them women, gathered in Washington on Saturday to protest the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, some wearing the pink hats that marked the much larger protest against his first inauguration in 2017.
In Franklin Park, one of the staging sites for the “People's March” that will wind through downtown, demonstrators gathered in a light rain to demand gender justice and bodily autonomy.
Other demonstrators gathered in two other parks near the White House, where one group focused on democracy and immigration and another on domestic issues in Washington, before heading toward the final rally of the march at the Lincoln Memorial.
Police cars, with sirens sounding, moved between the match start sites.
Protests against Trump's inauguration are much smaller than in 2017, partly because the US women's rights movement was divided after Trump's victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
Vendors sold buttons bearing the words #MeToo and “Love Over Hate,” and sold People's March flags for $10. The demonstrators carried posters reading “Feminists against fascists” and “People above politics.”
“It is truly therapeutic to be here with all of you today in solidarity and togetherness, in the face of what will be some truly horrific extremism,” Minnie Timaraju, president of the advocacy group Reproductive Freedom for All, told the crowd as the events began. on.
The good news, she said, is that abortion rights remain popular despite Trump's win, prompting a chant of “We're the majority!”
Reproductive groups joined civil rights, environmental and other women's groups in organizing the march against Trump and his agenda as he prepares to take office on Monday. Trump won all seven battleground states and the popular vote in the November election.
