This weekend will be unusually busy for Seattle Police as they staff a number of events. It all starts Friday with the Trans Pride March on Capitol Hill. Around the same time, President Obama is due in town -- and there’s a Mariners game. All that activity has organizers in the transgender community taking extra precautions.
Between Obama’s fundraising visit at the Washington State Convention Center and Friday night’s march, the corridor between downtown Seattle and Capitol Hill will be crawling with police.
Trans Pride has gone further -- hiring private security for that event. But, even with Orlando tragedy, a big police presence isn’t always preferable to the transgender community which has a rocky history with police, dating back to the infamous Stonewall riots in New York City.
Danni Askini with the Gender Justice League says some of that sentiment still exists.
“We try to balance ensuring that everyone is able to march safely and participate in our Pride event safely while not having an overwhelming force of police which can be intimidating and can really take away from the celebratory aspect of pride,” said Askini.
Askini and the Seattle Police say this year there will be officers on bicycle and on foot, instead of patrol cars and motorcycles they’ve had in years past. Organizers are expecting about 7,500 people to attend Trans Pride. And Askini says there's a reason for hosting a separate gathering.
"It's kind of hard for us to pick each other out amongst a larger Pride that happens on Sunday, which has about 500,000 people attending. So really it's about the opportunity for us to see each other, and see ourselves, and really to focus in specifically on the issues that trans people face," said Askini.
Sunday's Pride Parade downtown will be a much bigger event for police to manage. Police say it’s now as big as – if not bigger than the Seafair Torchlight Parade.
