Boston’s liberal mayor is promoting a transgender menstruation event at a public library — offering attendees a catered meal and free period underwear — just weeks after the city revealed a budget shortfall of nearly $50 million.
Mayor Michelle Wu’s office for LGBTQ advancement has partnered with the Massachusetts National Organisation for Women and several local pro-LGBTQ groups to host an event called Trans Period Pride on 17 June at a branch of Boston Public Library. Promoted via an Instagram post decorated in the pink and blue shades of the transgender pride flag, the event is billed as “another consciousness raising conversation around transgender experiences with menstruation.”
The timing has attracted criticism. Boston is currently facing a $48.4 million deficit, and Boston Public Schools is dealing with a separate $53 million shortfall that has put teacher staffing under threat. The juxtaposition of city-funded catering and complimentary underwear against a backdrop of potential classroom cuts has not gone unnoticed by Wu’s critics.
It is not the only spending decision drawing scrutiny. Wu’s administration has also been distributing $500 vouchers to migrants for haircuts, massages, yoga, acupuncture, meditation, gym memberships and other wellness activities through a scheme called Belonging Matters, created in partnership with the nonprofit OUTnewcomers. The programme, funded entirely by the city, prioritises “low-income, isolated queer and trans migrants, asylum seekers and refugees,” according to Mass Daily News. One LGBTQ group subsequently returned city grant funding in protest at the scheme.
Wu has been a polarising figure in Boston despite winning a comfortable second term and maintaining a 66 per cent approval rating in an Emerson College poll conducted last September. In March, she and Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey were both booed by supporters at the Boston Red Sox home opener at Fenway Park. She also drew criticism for skipping the decades-old St Patrick’s Day Breakfast in South Boston — an annual gathering of politicians — weeks after attending a Ramadan night market at city hall. Wu’s spokesperson told the Boston Globe she had chosen to attend church with her family instead. Her absence was made more pointed by an ongoing clash with the breakfast’s host, Senator Nick Collins, a fellow Democrat who has publicly opposed her commercial property tax proposals.
Wu’s salary rose to $250,000 in January, up from $207,000, while city councillors received an increase from $103,500 to $125,000. The pay rises were defended by Wu ally Councillor Sharon Durkan, who argued that adequate salaries were necessary to prevent politicians from being tempted by corruption. “I do not want anyone that serves in this body to not be able to afford their life and to go towards something that’s really dark and negative,” Durkan said.
