Women’s march in Honolulu unites many common causes

Advocates for women’s rights and other issues rallied at the state Capitol on Saturday morning, united in their desire to see President Donald Trump ousted from office.

The 2020 Women’s March Oahu was held in conjunction with similar events in dozens of other cities across the country that began with a massive women’s march the day after Trump’s January 2017 inauguration.

>> PHOTOS: Women’s march in Honolulu takes aim at Trump administration

Kate Leary, a Waialae Elementary School teacher and organizer of the Oahu march, said that in the four years since the 2017 march, concerns have broadened far beyond women’s reproductive rights, keeping abortion legal and access to health care.

“It’s not just like one cause now,” she said. “It’s so many different causes and all these people can come together” to support LGBTQ rights and address systemic racism and how the coronavirus pandemic was handled.

She marveled that some 400 people — men and women, from kupuna to families with young girls — joined the march and drive-by rally, most wearing masks and observing social distancing.

Leary said the march was also an opportunity to honor the legacy of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “who did so much for the women’s movement. It is also a protest against the Republican Party’s rush to fill her seat before the upcoming election, which could threaten the Affordable Care Act and women’s reproductive rights.”

Nicole Chatterson, 34, also gave a shoutout to the pioneering lawyer and high court justice. “I’m appreciative of the rights I have today because of the work Ruth Bader Ginsburg has done,” she said. “I’m also afraid of seeing that undone if we appoint right now. I think we should wait until after the election.”