Massive quilt celebrating transgender Americans to be unveiled on the National Mall — in photos

This weekend, as WorldPride descends on the nation’s capital for the first time, visitors to Washington, D.C., won’t just find rainbow banners and parades. They’ll find a quilt—a massive, handcrafted protest laid across the National Mall, sewn by hundreds of transgender people, families, and allies from across the United States.

The Freedom to Be Monument, a sprawling installation of over 200 quilt panels, opens Friday. It is both a love letter to trans life and a roaring act of defiance, made visible at the foot of the Capitol just as the Trump administration ramps up its campaign to erase LGBTQ+ existence from public life.

“This isn’t meant to just be abstract,” said Gillian Branstetter, the American Civil Liberties Union spokesperson who spearheaded the project. “It’s meant to make a lot of that work we are doing in communities, state houses, from the Supreme Court and the White House to Congress—visible.”

The monument is one of the first official installations of WorldPride 2025 and arrives at a time of acute danger for trans people in the United States. More than half of all states have passed laws banning gender-affirming care for minors. The Trump administration has gutted federal protections, erased gender identity from health care and housing rules, and begun denying passport changes. The Pentagon is kicking out transgender members of the military, and the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this summer on a case that could greenlight nationwide bans on lifesaving gender-affirming care.

“When this started becoming real—when we started getting planning and holding quilting events—was shortly after we filed a cert application in U.S. v. Skrmetti,” Branstetter said, referring to the ACLU’s challenge to Tennessee’s ban on care for transgender youth. “It has been, in what is politically speaking, overnight, a massive sea change in transgender people’s freedom to be ourselves.”

Branstetter emphasized that the quilt is not just about symbolism but truth-telling. “We will not allow ourselves to be up for debate,” she said. “Transgender people are not optional.”

Some panels were made by children, finger-painted and joyful. Others were created by families, artists, mutual aid groups, support circles, and seasoned quilters. “Some are grassroots organizers. Some are parents. Some are immigrant rights organizations,” she said. “And I love that. Each serves as an individual statement and a collective one. We are a community—not monolithic, but united by what we’re at risk of losing.”

The quilt draws deliberate inspiration from another pivotal queer project: the AIDS Memorial Quilt. A smaller version of that quilt was first displayed on the National Mall in 1987 during a national LGBTQ+ march. That protest was a direct response to Bowers v. Hardwick, the Supreme Court decision that upheld a Georgia law criminalizing consensual sex between same-sex adults.

“I liked this echo between then and now,” Branstetter said. “Not AIDS, but HIV rates are still at crisis levels amongst transgender people ourselves. And this administration is certainly leaving no stone unturned in reversing the progress that HIV and AIDS advocates have fought for in the federal government, including basically demolishing PEPFAR.”

Only months ago, under the Biden administration, a section of the AIDS Quilt was displayed on the White House South Lawn for World AIDS Day in December. It was a powerful gesture—and, for many, a final one.

Now, as WorldPride begins under a radically different federal administration, the trans community’s grief and defiance are sewn directly into the fabric of protest.

“This is not virtue signaling,” Branstetter said. “This is our art, our creativity, our truth—and if it weren’t powerful, they wouldn’t be trying to take it away from us.”

The installation also arrives amid broader challenges. After Trump appointees took over the Kennedy Center, WorldPride organizers pulled a series of LGBTQ+ events from the venue, citing a hostile environment. A Drag Story Hour, Reading Room, and a separate AIDS Quilt exhibit have all been relocated to the WorldPride Welcome Center in D.C.’s Chinatown.

“If someone doesn’t feel comfortable being their true, authentic self, then that’s not the venue or space where we want to have an event,” Capital Pride Alliance executive director Ryan Bos told The Advocate.

Despite political pressure, the Freedom to Be Monument secured a federal permit and will remain on display at the National Mall during WorldPride's opening days. Branstetter said she’s “conscious but confident.”

And while she’s spent over a year organizing this campaign, what moves her most is who showed up to contribute. “Right now we’re watching as a lot of very powerful people buckle under this administration’s assertion of authority,” she said.

“And I am watching trans youth show up at school board meetings, show up at state houses, sue the Trump administration. It just astonishes me that the people with the most to lose are showing the most courage right now.”

She added: “The Toni Morrison quote is that 'the true function of freedom is to free somebody else.' That is why I do this work.”

As WorldPride prepares to open with art, protest, and celebration, Branstetter says she hopes those walking by the quilt feel something stir, whether they’re LGBTQ+ or not.

Keep scrolling for more images from the quilt. ⬇️