By Howard Packowitz

BLOOMINGTON – Members of the Twin Cities’ transgender community fear the Trump Administration is trying to deny their existence, and they’ll lose civil rights protections against discrimination.

Transgender individuals and their supporters marched in Downtown Bloomington, then staged a rally outside the McLean County Museum of History.

Organizers said they were stunned to learn about a memo leaked to the New York Times that the Trump Administration wants to create a legal definition of sex as a biological and unchangeable condition determined by genitalia at birth.

A birth certificate, the leaked memo said, is definitive proof of a person’s sex.

Civil rights laws have been put in place to protect groups that have faced discrimination, said Brittany Clinard, founder of B’N Trans – Community.

“We are a class that’s discriminated against and we deserve those same protections,” said Clinard, who’s 33 and served as a surgical technician in the U.S. Army Reserve.

Authentically You founder Tobias Horner said he’s found acceptance in the year he’s lived in the Twin-Cities, more so than the 20 years he spent in Chicago.

“We are a family down here, and when one member of our family is affected, or hurt, or targeted, we rally together tonight and any other night because that’s what we do here in Bloomington-Normal,” Horner said.

“We are there for each other.”

Prior to taking hormones for the first time two years ago, Horner said he hated himself, felt depressed, and wanted to commit suicide.

Howard Packowitz can be reached at [email protected]