“Not being able to feel comfortable in your own gender or presentation is a pretty difficult place,” she said. “It’s hard to focus on other things when you can’t feel safe.”
Saturday’s HKonJ People’s Assembly Coalition was an opportunity for many local LGBT advocacy groups to demonstrate their support.
“We hope to bring visibility to the queer movement,” said James Miller, executive director of the LGBT Center of Raleigh.
Jaloni Martin, a student at N.C. State University and leader of a campus LGBT group, said the march was a chance to illuminate unseen social issues.
“The biggest issue for the LGBT community is definitely discrimination,” he said. “Some people don’t always understand everything about it.”
North Carolina workplaces highlight LGBT discrimination, said attendee Joey Lopez, who is a faith organizer for More Light Presbyterian Church.
“(Equality would be) the ability to go to work and not worry that you’re going to (be) fired because you go home and you live with someone who is the same gender as you, or you’re partnered or married to someone who is the same gender as you,” he said.
Lopez and his group were among a range of organizations united at the march for seemingly different causes.
