The Worcester City Council meeting in Massachusetts was standing room only due to a flood of LGBT activists urging members to make the city a sanctuary for the group.
Massachusetts has been an LGBT sanctuary state since 2023 and is among 11 other states with the status. Then there are the cases of sanctuary cities that precede their own sanctuary state status, like Kansas City and Columbia, Missouri. These cities are setting the respective precedents that West Hollywood, California, and New York City did in becoming sanctuaries before their states did.
The Worcester City Council voted 9-2 Tuesday to add a sanctuary status over its already protected LGBT community. Roughly 200 self-proclaimed members of the LGBT community descended on the meeting, which dragged on for five hours, in support of the cause.
“I need this city to protect me because the federal government won’t,” one self-proclaimed drag queen told the council. “If you say that you’re afraid of Trump and that’s why you don’t want the city to be a safe space for trans people, you better be prepared for trans people to make this a very unsafe space.”
“Can you look at me and tell me how many of my friends have to die before you do anything?” another activist asked the council. “Look at me! F***ing pathetic!”
Others suggested that gay marriage, which has been legal in the state for over 20 years, could have their marriage rights stripped away. Many likened opposing the sanctuary status to fascism and Nazism.
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The turnout was likely prompted by President Donald Trump’s executive order that outlined that the United States “will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”
Worcester elected its first nonbinary council member, Thu Nguyen, in 2022. Nguyen has been on a self-imposed hiatus from the council, citing transphobia. As a result, Nguyen has missed half of the meetings for the traffic and parking subcommittee and has not held a meeting for the public service and transportation subcommittee, for which Nguyen is chair.
