A little snow didn’t stop thousands of Utah residents from marching on Salt Lake City’s state capitol building this past Monday to protest for women's equality.
More than 6,000 people flooded the capitol, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. The march was organized to call for equal rights for women, the LGBTQ community, people of color and religious minorities.
The protest took place just two days after an estimated 2.6 million worldwide marched in solidarity with American women, because it was the first day of business for Utah’s part-time legislature. Some marchers said they had just arrived home from the Women’s March on Washington in D.C.; they were exhausted and some were even getting sick, but that didn’t stop them from showing up on Monday.
Men make up an overwhelming majority of Utah’s state legislature and many marchers told the Tribune they don’t trust their state government to make the right decisions for women.
“You know what else I’m sick and tired of?” event organizer Kate Kelly told the Tribune. “I’m sick and tired of men making laws about our bodies and our choices and our lives without consulting us.”
Other marchers said they were fearful of President Trump and the discriminatory policies he’s said he’ll put in place.
“With Trump being inaugurated, there’s a lot of fear for women’s rights, immigrant rights, LGBTQ, Muslims,” marcher Megan Stevens said. “We’re afraid that our voices aren’t going to be heard and our rights will be given away.”
As Noor Ul-Hassan, a spokesperson for Utah Women Unite, told the Tribune: “We will come together even if those men don’t want us to. When you think we don’t have a voice, remember that we raised our voices here.”
Scroll below to see some tweets with video and photos from the Utah Women’s March on the State Capitol.
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