The City Council of Worcester, Massachusetts has officially voted to designate itself as a ‘transgender sanctuary city’. They did so in protest of President Trump’s executive actions in defiance of the transgender movement, such as banning trans people from the military and banning biological men from competing in women’s sports.
The final vote was 9–2 in favour of the motion, which thus passed easily. However, it has no legally binding consequences, it is just an official moral stance by the city.
The resolution was filed by local resident Allie Cislo because he believes that ‘the trans, nonbinary, and LGBTQIA+ community in Worcester and nationally are being attacked by President Trump’; and it states that in Worcester, ‘no city resources…or city property, shall be utilized for detaining persons for solely seeking or providing gender-affirming care’ and ‘no city resources [shall] be utilized for cooperating with or providing information to any individual or out-of-state agency or department regarding the provision of gender-affirming healthcare,’ according to Boston.com.
One of the trans attendees of the City Council meeting who spoke up in favour of the resolution seemed to make a threat towards the Council, saying: ‘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’d better prepare for trans people to make this a very unsafe space.’
The term ‘sanctuary city’ typically refers to cities that do not cooperate with federal law enforcement in the apprehension of illegal migrants within the United States. Newly sworn-in Attorney General Pam Bondi paused all federal funding from the Justice Department to such cities on her first day; and has sued New York City for its pro-illegal migrant practices since as well. With this new resolution in Worcester, some city officials seem to look to defy the new Trump administration in other ways as well.
Interestingly, this is not the first time we cover a story involving Worcester and transgenderism.
Last month we reported on a member of the City Council in the same city who refused to show up to meetings after being ‘misgendered’. Worcester is the second most populous city in the state of Massachusetts with around 200,000 residents, and thus its City Council members are full-time workers, getting paid $30,000–$33,000 a year, yet Thu Nguyen refused to fulfill her duties because some of her fellow Council Members did not comply with her preferred ‘they/them’ pronouns.
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