A CNN LGBTQ town hall featuring many 2020 Democratic presidential candidates was interrupted by protesters on Thursday night, including one incident when a microphone was taken from a questioner at the event in Los Angeles.
A protester named Blossom C. Brown took the mic from a questioner while former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke was on stage.
“Black trans women are dying, our lives matter!” Brown shouted. “I am an extraordinary black trans woman, and I deserve to be here!”
{mosads}”I am tired. I am so tired … It’s not just my black trans women, it’s my black trans brothers too. And I’m going to say what I’m going to say,” she added.
“Blossom, let me tell you something. The reason that we’re here is to validate people like you,” CNN anchor Don Lemon responded.
O’Rourke took to Twitter later to declare that “a town hall focused on trans women of color” will be held at a later date.
At another point, protesters chanted “Trans lives matter,” prompting anchor Anderson Cooper to address the audience.
“Let me just point out: There is a long and proud tradition in history in the gay, lesbian and transgender community of protest and we applaud them for their protest,” said Cooper. “AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, an activist group working to end the AIDS crisis, was particularly active in protesting for access to experimental medicine to treat the virus in the 1980s and 1990s, at the height of the AIDS epidemic.”
“And they are absolutely right to be angry and upset at the lack of attention, particularly in the media, on the lives of transgender” people, he added.
According to the Human Rights Campaign, 26 transgender people were killed in the U.S. in 2018, while 19 have been killed thus far in 2019.
The event, hosted by CNN and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, included Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), former Vice President Joe Biden, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, and businessman Tom Steyer in addition to O’Rourke.
“People are dying, do something!” and “Trans lives matter!” were shouted at Buttigieg at one point.
“I do want to acknowledge what these demonstrators are speaking about, which is the epidemic of violence against black trans women,” Buttigieg, who is openly gay, replied, to applause. “And I believe or would like to believe that everybody here is committed to ending that epidemic, and that does include lifting up … visibility and speaking to it.”