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‘I am saddened, but not defeated, to have to postpone the first National Trans Visibility March,’ said Marissa Miller.

The lead organizer of a National Transgender Visibility March on Washington planned for March 31 announced on Monday that the march has been postponed until an as-yet-to-be-announced date in September.

“As the Senior Strategic Director for the National Trans Visibility March, I am saddened, but not defeated, to have to postpone the first National Trans Visibility March, initially scheduled to be held March 31, 2019-April 1, 2019 in Washington, D.C., to be held in September 2019,” said Marissa Miller, a D.C.-based trans activist, in a statement.

“As the Lead Organizer, I take full responsibility for not foreseeing time restrictions and overall cost for such an amazing event,” Miller said in her statement. “After re-thinking and looking over our planning, we did not allow ourselves enough time for substantial fundraising and relationship building,” she said.

“I have been speaking with several leaders across the country, very late into the planning of the March, and we realized we could not have the National Trans Visibility March on April 1 in part due to it being recognized as ‘April Fool’s Day,’ which meant re-thinking our route and securing new permits.”

Early last month Miller told the Washington Blade that organizers initially announced the Trans March would take place on April 1, one day after a March 31 gathering to honor longtime trans community leaders and a separate Trans Visibility Ball. She said arrangements initially had been made to hold those two events at the Marriott Gaylord Hotel at the National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Md.

Two weeks ago Miller said organizers decided after conferring with supporters and allies that it would be best to hold the march as well as the other two events on March 31, which is a Sunday rather than on Monday, April 1.

Now, according to Miller, a consensus was reached among those planning the march, including all members of the March’s National Organizing Team, to move the date of the march to September.

She said a decision would be made soon on the exact date for the march in September. One potential date that might be ruled out, she said, was Sunday, Sept. 29, which marks the start of the Jewish holy days of Rosh Hashanah.

“The next six months we will continue to raise money and building alliances across the country,” Miller’s statement says. “We will continue meeting with our Policy makers. We will continue working to END HIV by 2030. And we will continue to Demand Equity and Social Justice,” the statement says.

Last month, Miller told the Blade that organizers planned to begin the march in front of the White House and end it at the U.S. Capitol, where a rally with speakers would be held.

She said organizers were also planning to raise money to pay for transportation and lodging for at least 1,500 trans and gender nonconforming people from different parts of the country to make it possible for them to come to the nation’s capital to join the march.

“Members of the transgender and gender non-conforming communities will take a major stand against hate and discrimination when they rally in the nation’s capital for the first-ever National Trans Visibility March on Washington,” organizers said in a Jan. 11 statement.