Arts & Entertainment
Meryl Streep targets Donald Trump at HRC gala
the actress remembers her transgender music teacher at the ceremony
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![(Screenshot via YouTube.)](https://www.washingtonblade.com/content/files/2017/02/Meryl_Streep_HRC_Screenshot_600_by_400.jpg)
(Screenshot via YouTube.)
Meryl Streep defended her Golden Globes speech criticizing President Donald Trump during an emotional speech at the Human Rights Campaign’s Greater New York Gala dinner on Saturday.
Streep, who was accepting the National Ally for Equality Award, referenced Trump’s tweet calling her “overrated” after she used her Golden Globes speech to call out Trump’s mocking of a disabled New York Times reporter in 2015.
“Yes, I am the most overrated, over-decorated, and currently, over-berated actress of my generation,” Streep told the crowd. “But that is why you invited me here. Right?”
“We should not be surprised that fundamentalists, of every stripe, are exercised and fuming,” Streep continued. “We should not be surprised that these profound changes come at a steeper cost than we originally thought. If we live through this precarious moment, if his catastrophic instinct to retaliate doesn’t lead us to nuclear winter, we will have much to thank our current leader for. He will have woken us up to how fragile freedom is. The whip of the executive, through a Twitter feed, can lash and intimidate, punish and humiliate, delegitimize the press and imagined enemies with spasmodic regularity and easily provoked predictability.”
Streep also recalled her transgender music teacher who “was one of the bravest people I knew.” The actress went on to touch on the possibility of the First Amendment Defense Act coming to pass. For Streep, “We have the right to live our lives, with God or without, as we choose.”
“There is a prohibition against the establishment of a state religion in our Constitution, and we have the right to choose with whom we live, whom we love and who and what gets to interfere with our bodies,” Streep says. “As Americans, men, women, people, gay, straight, L, B, G, T, Q, all of us have the human right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And if you think people got mad when they thought the government was coming after their guns, wait till they come and try to take away our happiness.”
Watch her speech below.
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The 2024 New York City Pride Parade wound through the streets of Manhattan and past the historic Stonewall Inn on Sunday, June 30.
(Washington Blade photos by Daniel Truitt)
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The fourth annual Fredericksburg Pride march and festival was held at Riverfront Park in Fredericksburg, Va. on Saturday, June 29. The event began with a march around downtown Fredericksburg beginning and ending in the park.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
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Covering Fredericksburg Pride for @WashBlade . City Council member @WillMackintosh speaking: pic.twitter.com/tDdVD2IVsM
— Michael Patrick Key (@MichaelKeyWB) June 29, 2024
Photos
PHOTOS: Goodwin Living Pride
Senior living and healthcare organization holds fourth annual march at Falls Church campus
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The senior living and healthcare organization Goodwin Living held its fourth annual community Pride march around its Bailey’s Crossroads campus in Falls Church, Va. with residents, friends and supporters on Tuesday, June 25. Following the march, a drag brunch was held with performances by drag artists of SADBrunch: Crimsyn, Sapphire Dupree and Evon Dior Michelle.
(Photos courtesy of Goodwin Living)
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