Despite the Attacks Against Us, LGBTQ+ People Know How to Win
In recent weeks, we have seen an undeniable shift in the scale and severity of attacks against the LGBTQ+ community, and specifically, transgender and nonbinary people. The new presidential administration’s attempts to regulate gender, ban military service, and restrict access to best practice medical care have wide-reaching consequences. In the wake of these efforts, LGBTQ+ people are faced with unprecedented risks, many unknowns, and feelings of vulnerability and precarity.
However, despite these threats, our community continues to make progress by amplifying our power and strengthening our impact. We advocate for our rights by fighting bad bills. We protect our homes and the community spaces where we find refuge. We take care of each other — especially the most vulnerable among us — by providing the resources we need to thrive. And we remind ourselves that with thoughtfulness and solidarity, we can keep pushing forward.
We Defeat Bills
The visual adaptation below of bill tracking data from the Human Rights Campaign and the Equality Federation shows how, since 2010, approximately 92% of the anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in state legislatures each year have been defeated.
Even in recent years, when our community has faced unprecedented attacks on our freedoms, we consistently defeat the vast majority of harmful legislation year-over-year, thanks to the incredible work of movement organizing and advocacy.
And, even when harmful legislation is enacted, we continue to fight — through litigation, through protest, and much more, as discussed next.
We Create Safe Spaces
Fostering space for community building is another way we win. Especially in hostile political climates, such spaces provide shelter from the difficulties and potential discrimination of everyday life. For years, LGBTQ+ organizers have demonstrated how community-building can be successful, even in places that are less accepting or with more hostile legislatures.
Camp Indigo Point is just one example of these efforts. A residential summer camp in the Midwest, Camp Indigo Point serves over 100 LGBTQ+ young people each year and provides space to connect with nature, explore independence, and create new friendships with like-minded peers. A unique home-away-from-home experience, Camp Indigo Point is a safe space where queer youth can arrive as their authentic selves and thrive.
>> To learn more or to donate, visit www.campindigopoint.org.
We Care For Each Other
In addition to offering physical space for connection and education, LGBTQ+ organizers across the country also rely on mutual aid networks to meet the needs of their people in this current moment.
In response to the rapid increase in state laws banning best-practice medical care for transgender youth, the Campaign for Southern Equality launched its Trans Youth Emergency Project (TYEP) in 2023. The TYEP helps families navigate a complex and uneven policy landscape through logistical and financial support. Supporting families of trans youth in the South and beyond, the Campaign for Southern Equality’s TYEP has reached at least 25 states with one-on-one patient navigation programs, emergency grants, and information sharing about healthcare restrictions and more.
▸▸ If you are seeking resources to access emergency transgender medical care, click here to submit a request to the TYEP.
We Build Capacity
The resilience and solidarity of Southern organizers illustrate how local community-building efforts continue to preserve and protect queer people and the places they call home. Across the country, LGBTQ+ people are finding support, resources, and connection through their local LGBTQ community centers.
Serving tens of thousands of people every week, these anchors of support for the community provide vital, diverse programs and services, which are tailored to reflect the diversity of LGBTQ+ people and the local areas that they serve. As shown below, most centers offer programming for transgender and gender-diverse people, LGBTQ+ young adults, low-income LGBTQ+ people, parents of LGBTQ+ youth, LGBTQ+ people of color, and many other specific populations.
We Invest in Our Young People
MAP’s report also highlights how crucial community centers’ resources are for the people they serve, especially LGBTQ+ youth. In Boca Raton, Florida, for example, PRISM shared how their services specifically impact and empower LGBTQ+ young people:
“With attacks against LGBTQ+ youth across the state of Florida, extracurricular programs and clubs will be even more of a safe haven for queer students. The PRISM Student Ambassador Program (P-SAP) is a network of GSAs (Gender and Sexuality Alliances) and other LGBTQ+ student organizations empowering the next generation of leaders. P-SAP connects students in leadership positions in their GSAs through monthly meetings and ensures they are well-equipped to foster safe spaces for queer youth in their educational environments through leadership development, policy education, community engagement, and overall participation in PRISM. To date, student ambassadors have made waves in their communities, from holding clothing drives to writing and passing school board items to increasing student involvement in decision-making in their districts.”
The impact of LGBTQ community centers nationwide via their critical programming — including education, health care, and advocacy — is profound and another powerful example of how our community supports itself.
From defeating harmful legislation, to regional, grassroots efforts, to local community centers, there are many ways that we continue to win. The collective, ongoing work of LGBTQ+ advocates and organizers is happening across the country — at every level, in every region, in real time. As we grapple with anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and harmful attacks on our community, we can also find reassurance in the strength, the grit, and the care that we have — and have always — offered one another.
