Jacksonville, FL – About 150 people came out to a Trans Lives Matter rally, June 27, in front of Jacksonville courthouse to demand justice. The event was sponsored by many organizations including Jacksonville Community Action Committee, Coalition for Consent, Jacksonville Transgender Action Committee, Equality Florida, and Transgender Awareness Project. This rally was to honor the lives of the three black transgender women murdered here in Jacksonville.

Just this week a black transgender woman, Cathalina Christina James, was murdered in Jacksonville, which makes this the third transgender women to be killed, following Celine Walker and Antash’a English. The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO) believes that none of the murders are connected in any way, but some community members disagree. This year alone, 13 transgender people have been murdered in the U.S., with 23% of those killed occurring in Jacksonville.

Community members and activists demanded community control of the police at the rally. Christina Kittle led chants, including, “When Black trans women lives are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back,” along with “Black lives matter, Black trans lives matter” and “No Justice, no peace. No transphobic police.”

Kittle told the crowd, “We need to get rid of the illusion that there is a force that equally protects all of us. We need to keep building our communities and hold the JSO accountable.” Kittle and other speakers talked about why it’s necessary for the Jacksonville community, especially the Black community, to fight for community control of the police, making sure misgendering doesn’t persist along the JSO and that police find the possible serial killer attacking the transgender community.

“Revolutionary women of color such as Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson fought the battles and paved the way for gay and trans liberation, and are so often left out of the narrative by rainbow capitalism, but the fight for trans liberation has always been connected to the fight for police accountability,” stated Elias Joseph, a local Syrian trans activist and community organizer.

Many are also calling for the resignation of Jacksonville’s Sheriff Mike Williams, who has yet to make a statement on the murders of the black transwomen, along with Mayor Lenny Curry, whose office has been silent around these deaths.

Protesters vowed to keep up the fight until justice is won.

#JacksonvilleFL #AfricanAmerican #TransLivesMatter #JacksonvilleCommunityActionCommittee #CoalitionForConsent

Jessica Pounds has been attending Coalition for Consent events. The events are a mix of classroom style and therapy style sessions to arm people with knowledge, resources and confidence to combat abuse. The classes are hosted by Coalition for Consent’s founder and Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) member Christina Kittle and the LGBTQ+ youth advocate from the Women’s Center of Jacksonville Sarah Humphreys. Knowing that she was part of this community, Pounds reached to Coalition for Consent for help.

Pounds, a local musician and youth facilitator for the national non-profit Girls Inc., publicly warned people about the man who raped her. Her attacker then responded to this by sending novel-length messages to the local art scene describing many of Jessica’s private moments within their relationship, without her consent, as his explanation of why she was “crazy” – a term famously and conveniently tagged onto people who are vocal about their sexual abuse. Jessica’s own inner strength, along with support from others, helped keep her fighting back.

“It was important to show that she isn’t alone in this,” Kittle explained. “So I thought one thing that could help would be building a care package with some gifts and encouraging words from the community.”

The impact of this gesture though, was more than the group could have ever anticipated. “I have all of those letters surrounding me. They have given me so much strength,” said Pound. “I left my partner who I learned was gaslighting me into silence, and just was not very supportive at all, as well as my ‘friends’ that were saying they understood ‘both sides of the story,’ because they really were just holding me down and hurting me, so yeah I felt alone. The community showed me that my fight meant something though, it helped so much – I ugly cried!” Gaslighting is manipulating someone into questioning their own sanity.

The Women’s Center of Jacksonville was able to help her legally get the bogus slander charges against her dismissed. Pounds was exhausted but decided to keep fighting for women’s liberation.

While her attacker denied the accusations out of one side of his mouth, he eventually admitted to violating consent, admitting Pounds was right about his crimes all along. This is a victory in the difficult world of consent work.

Jessica went a step further and became a permanent member of Jacksonville’s Coalition for Consent. “I want to fight. I want to keep fighting. I want to be the hammer that breaks to cycle of abuse and I want to help others be the hammer, too.”

#JacksonvilleFL #MeToo #CoalitionForConsent