[photo credit - Steve Ahlquist, RIFuture.news]
Hello everyone! Thank you so much for your signatures and thank you to the folks who showed up with us yesterday at the RIIL Principals’ Committee on Athletics meeting to advocate. Steve Ahlquist, a progressive Rhode Island reporter covered the event and his article offers an accurate description of what happened.
TAKE ACTION: In summary, yesterday we showed up and spoke up, but unfortunately there was no indication that RIIL would make efforts to hear public commentary on this issue moving forward. That is why we have two actions that you can take now to continue this fight and put pressure on RIIL to hear our voices on this matter.
- Call RIIL at 401-272-9844 and ask to speak to Director Michael Lunney. You can say the following message: “I am calling because I believe that you should change your policy about athlete participation back to the previous one that explicitly supported trans youth. I want to know when and where a public forum about this RIIL policy will take place. We should be able to address these issues at a date and time that allows for real participation."
- In a discussion after the protest with other organizers, we realized that it could be helpful to create a central space for all Rhode Island advocacy groups to share information and communicate. We created a Facebook group Called “Unite RI Resistance” that folks can join for this purpose. If you or your organization/group is on Facebook, please join so that we can plan together, share information about resistance events, and update each other about current legislation and government meetings worth disrupting.
We will be sending more information about taking further action later this week. Thank you all for supporting this cause and continuing this fight with us.