Purple

We wear purple because all queens deserve a royal crown, because it speaks volumes to those who claim to be color-blind and connects us to an ancient cultural legacy. . . .¹

I am sitting here in a small town in Georgia called Madison, named after the fourth president of the United States. We are now forty-five presidents in, with the forty-fourth being a black man, understand. When he wore his purple tie (a quick Google search reveals he wore a purple tie often), what message was he trying to send? I believe the president was sending a message of hope to the underrepresented, misunderstand and often forgotten young people by wearing that purple tie.

We wear purple for all the queer and questioning youth that will sleep under a bridge or trade sex for a place to stay tonight. . . .

Now we have a forty-fifth president and he is trying to take all of us back to Madison, Georgia. To a time when one-third of the population were slaves, where the women were considered property to be used and abused as men saw fit. But this man also sparked a movement, signified by the Women's March, a march that made its way to the cover of Time Magazine. It was a March that ignited white women all over the world. To be fair, it was a multiracial, multi-issue March. There were "Black Lives Matter" signs and "Trans Equality Now" signs along with the "Nasty Woman" and "I was with Her" signs.

We wear purple because the intersection of Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality is the street we live on and we can't move even if we wanted to. . . .

Although the marches were a beautiful sight to behold, it does not negate the fact that 53 percent of all white women voted for forty-five while 94 percent of black women voted to uphold our American values of progress and equality for all people. What are we to make of this fact? It means that white supremacy trumps (pun intended) everything else. It means that patriarchy is still alive and well. It means that now more than ever we must come together as humanity to resist this onslaught on democracy.

And let's be clear, this is not just an American challenge, this sharp turn to the right is happening all over the world. The decision of the UK to leave the European Union—an act known as "Brexit"—is a sign of this change. The election of ultra-conservative government officials all over the world is a sign of this change, and that is why women all over the world joined to hold the marches on January 22, 2017.

So, they were marching all over the world, in Washington, DC, Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia, Paris, London, Australia, and Phoenix. Those ridiculous Pink Pussy hats, with the cat ears were everywhere, symbolizing that all pussies are pink. This is how fashion intersects with social justice, right? There is always a look. The civil rights marches of the 1960s were symbolized by conservative suits and ties for the men, and dresses, hats and matching handbags and shoes for the women. Appearances matter.

We wear purple because Radical Women of Color Feminism shapes our mindset and thought process, offering critical resistance to the prison industrial complex, male patriarchy, and religious subjugation. We wear purple because we have to rewrite the narrative of what is and who is a woman. . . .

As the oral historian for the Transgender Oral History Project for the Tretter Collection at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, I am charged with the collection of the lived experiences of transgender and gender nonconforming people throughout the Upper Midwest—and the entire country for that matter. Thus far I have interviewed 143 people, and I can tell you that not everybody who identifies as a woman has a pink pussy. In honesty, I want to take a moment to thank forty-five for bringing the word "pussy" into public consciousness and conversation. I love the word personally. But, there are some purple pussies in the world, some blue...