Leading the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) has been the job of a lifetime. I feel extremely honored to have held this position and privileged to have experienced the countless moments of joy and awe that have forever changed our lives as LGBTQ individuals. After 22 years, with a full and grateful heart, I will step-down as the Executive Director of NCLR at the end of this year. I never imagined I would live in San Francisco or lead an organization at the forefront of the fight for...
Our Voices
This year, NCLR celebrated four decades of work to advance LGBTQ equality. We know that we are stronger and better able to fight today’s battles because of our deep history in the movement—growing with, standing with, and supporting our community. And today, on World AIDS Day 2017, we renew our commitment to the fight against HIV, supporting our family members living with HIV, and honoring those who have died. Former executive director Roberta Achtenberg recently reflected on our early work in...
Yesterday, the President of the United States defended white supremacy and virulent racism on national television. He derided the journalists who challenged or questioned his comments, and he created a false equivalence between anti-racism protesters and Neo-Nazis. This is not normal. And we cannot allow this to become the new normal. Trump did not make yesterday’s statements in a vacuum. He made them against the backdrop of a nation reeling from the recent deadly racist rally in...
Monday marked two important moments at NCLR. First, we celebrated the second anniversary of winning the freedom to marry nationwide at the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges. Being a part of the legal team that won that landmark and transformative victory for our community will always be a highlight of my legal career. Also on Monday, NCLR won our third U.S. Supreme Court victory in two years, Pavan v. Smith. In this case, we represented two married same-sex couples who sued the state...
On June 13, 2017, the Human Rights Campaign and National Center for Lesbian Rights delivered a letter to the U.S. Senate urging them not to gut access to healthcare. More than 60 LGBTQ organizations, representing millions of LGBTQ people across the country, signed onto this letter sharing deep concerns for the health of our community. The letter notes that the Congressional Budget Office has projected that repeal of the Affordable Care Act would result in 14 million Americans losing health...
In North Carolina this week, anti-LGBTQ extremists tried to do the unthinkable. They introduced House Bill 780, also known as the “Uphold Historical Marriage Act” in an attempt to turn back the clock and, once again, whip up anti-LGBTQ sentiment. The bill directly challenges the Supreme Court’s 2015 marriage equality ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges by seeking to nullify same-sex couples’ marriages. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper weighed in yesterday: “This bill is wrong. We need more...
“Perseverance in almost any plan is better than fickleness and fluctuation”—Alexander Hamilton When we adopted our NCLR tag line—”The audacity to fight for justice, the perseverance to win”—it was before President Obama’s book “The Audacity of Hope” and years before the cultural phenomenon that is “Hamilton” ushered in a refreshed examination of Alexander Hamilton’s writings. But now the words of one of our nation’s early founders are particularly...
By a slim margin, this nation has elected a demagogue who trafficked in bigotry, stoked racist hatred and normalized misogyny. The election of Donald Trump as President threatens basic principles of human dignity and justice. Many of our most cherished values—inclusion, honoring difference, embracing equality, dismantling oppressive systems—are in jeopardy, but we will not be deterred. This is the moment we are called to resist. We are about to be tested as never before, and speaking for...
At the very beginning of this year, NCLR filed an amicus brief in one of the most important abortion rights cases to reach the U.S. Supreme Court in decades. We urged the Court to look behind the rhetoric about “protecting women’s health” that Texas used to cloak its onerous abortion restrictions, and to be deeply skeptical when supposed health reasons are used to undermine fundamental constitutional rights, like the right to end a pregnancy. For such reasons have been used, in the past and...
We all know that LGBTQ people are everywhere, which is why NCLR launched our #RuralPride Campaign, which includes holding day-long summits in rural regions across the country to help LGBTQ folks connect with federal agencies, national organizations, and one another. For the past two years, we have worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the True Colors Fund to bring 13 summits to towns across the country, listening to the stories, hopes, fears, and needs of families, individuals,...
