(17 May 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Washington – 16 May 2025
1. Wide of ‘Freedom to Be’ quilt installation on the National Mall
2. Quilt panel reading (English): "Trans lives matter"
3. Passersby looking at the quilt installation
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Abdool Corlette, ‘Freedom to Be’ co-creator:
++PARTIALLY OVERLAID BY SHOTS 1-3++
“This is the perfect time for this installation. Because we are seeing across the board an attempt to erase trans folks from all public life, and we knew that we need to take up space. We needed to memorialize people’s stories and do it in the literal backyard of the Capitol. We wanted to make sure that folks were not erased, that folks were not forgotten, that their stories were not just lost to time.”
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Gillian Branstetter, ‘Freedom to Be’ co-creator:
++PARTIALLY OVERLAID BY SHOTS 6-8++
“So, starting last year, we started distributing quilt-making panels through, first and foremost, the ACLU’s Nationwide Affiliate Network, we have 54 state and local affiliates in all 50 states, Guam, Puerto Rico, and here in DC. And asking them to work with local advocates and grassroots organizations, and certainly lots and lots of artists, to produce what is now over 250 handmade quilts covering over 9,000 square feet.”
6. Various of quilt panel
7. Quilt panel reading (English): "This land was made 4 you + me"
8. Quilt panel reading (English): "Protect Trans Saint Louis"
9. Zoom out on quilt installation, reading (English): "I exist"
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Abdool Corlette, ‘Freedom to Be’ co-creator:
++STARTS IN PREVIOUS SHOT++
“Every time we unboxed a quilt, it was like unwrapping a gift. You never knew what you were going to get. We didn’t see them in advance. And what touched me the most were the smallest towns. The places where, like literally I’m getting moved even thinking about it, where you know, there’s one little community center. You know, just a small group of people that brought their whole community together to tell their story. That’s what touched me the most.”
11. Pan down from U.S. Capitol to quilt panel
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Gillian Branstetter, ‘Freedom to Be’ co-creator:
++STARTS IN PREVIOUS SHOT++
“There’s no such thing as freedom that just belongs to other people. There’s only our rights and our freedom. And we have to defend it for all of us or we risk losing it for all of us, and that’s especially true right now under this current administration. And it’s a value that we’re always going to fight for.”
++ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
As part of the launch of World Pride in Washington, D.C. the American Civil Liberties Union and the Gender Liberation Movement is unveiling the Freedom To Be quilt on the National Mall on May 17, a 9,000 square-foot collection of over 250 quilt panels handmade by transgender people and their families from across the United States.
Co-creators Abdool Corlette and Gillian Branstetter were working with a team of people to install the quilt panels on Thursday, May 16.
“This is the perfect time for this installation. Because we are seeing across the board an attempt to erase trans folks from all public life, and we knew that we need to take up space. We needed to memorialize people’s stories and do it in the literal backyard of the Capitol,” Colette said.
The installation comes at a time when the Trump administration has moved to erase mention of transgender people on government websites and passports and is trying to remove them from the military.
AP Video shot by Mike Pesoli
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