Hundreds march through The Grove protesting ‘anti-LGBTQ’ legislation

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOV) - LGBTQ advocates protested in St. Louis over proposed legislation they say targets that specific demographic.

On Saturday, hundreds rallied through The Grove over several bills limiting LGBTQ exposure in Missouri.

The ACLU reported Missouri lawmakers have filed more than 30 anti-LGBTQ bills, among the most in the country for any state.

Missouri’s bills in the legislature cover issues such as banning trans women from playing female sports to limiting where a drag show can take place.

“Some of these bills are banning bathroom accessibility, pronoun usage, parental notifications of students’ gender identity and gender-affirming care regardless of age,” said Jordan Braxton with Pride St. Louis.

“If you don’t like drag shows, don’t go to one,” St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones said. “And I stand here in tears thinking about how our state legislature wants to legislate their body, your body and everybody’s body.”

Jones mentioned how the city recently established an LGBTQIA+ Advisory Board.

“They are hard at work looking at every policy through an LGBTQIA+ lense,” she said,

“If we wait until some poor Missouri kid comes out and says that ‘my life has been altered because I was subjected to surgery and or drugs that I should have never been subjected to. My life has been changed forever and that should have never happened to me.’ If we wait until that happens we have waited too late,” Missouri Republican Representative Brad Hudson told News 4 recently on a bill he’s sponsoring.

Some bills are seeing movement in Jefferson City, but none have made it across the finish line so far.

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