October 10, 2023 • 38 mins
Sometimes it’s difficult to remember how far we’ve come in the fight for equality.
Kevin Jennings is CEO of Lambda Legal, the country’s oldest LGBTQ+ legal rights organization. He says it’s important to remember where we’ve been and how far we’ve come to have a clear sense of where we’re going, explains why he’s optimistic about young people, and shares his vision for a future where no one needs to come out - we’re all just free to be ourselves.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Don't let them take away your joy, don't let them
take away your hope, don't let them take away your
sense of power, because if they succeed in doing that,
things will indeed ever change.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
There Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridget
Todd and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
October eleventh is National Coming Out Day. We spend a
lot of time on this podcast talking about the very
real threats facing the LGBTQ plus community, and while there
(00:41):
are many fights ahead, it's important not to lose sight
of all the wins we've had for quality, because we're winning.
Just asked Kevin Jennings.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
My name is Kevin Jennings, I use hee him pronouns,
and I'm the CEO of LAMB I Llegal, which is
America's oldest LGBTQ plus legal right organization LAMBDA Legals.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Lawyers have won precedent setting civil rights cases on everything
from marriage equality to expressions of gender identity to healthcare discrimination.
But before Kevin was a CEO of the oldest LGBTQ
legal rights organization in the country, he was an educator
just worried about his students. So, Kevin, you actually started
your career as an educator, right, like fighting discrimination for educators.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Tell me about that.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Sure. So I began my career as a high school
teacher in nineteen eighty five. I'm a first generation college graduate.
I was the first person in my family to go
to college, and so I wanted to go back into
the classroom and try to help young people have the
opportunities that I had had, which no one else in
my family had ever had before. My father only had
(01:49):
a tenth grade education, my mother only had a sixth
grade education. We were very poor growing up. I grew
up in a trailer park on an unpaved dirt road
and unincorporated town in North Carolina, and I was raised
very much with this philosophy of giving back. So I
became a teacher and I lost my first job because
(02:10):
I was gay in Providence, Rhode Island. You have to remember,
in nineteen eighty five, there was only one state that
band discrimination based on sexual orientation, and for people who
don't know, it was Wisconsin, which comes as a surprise
to many people. So if you lost your job because
you were gay, there was nothing you could do about it.
So when I went to my second job, I was
(02:31):
very nervous about kids finding out that I was gay.
And I have some advice for LGBTQ plus teachers, which is, y'all,
it's a glass closet. The kids always know who the
queer teacher is. And sure enough I had a student
who was gay come to me and come out and
say to me he was thinking of killing himself. I
(02:54):
was twenty four, I had no training, so the first
thing I could think of to say was, let's go
see accounts. And he said to me something that changed
the course of my life. He said, why shouldn't I
kill myself? My life isn't worth saving anyway. And that
took me back to my own adolescence in North Carolina,
(03:14):
where I had tried to kill myself when I was sixteen,
and I made myself a little promise that day that
whatever I did with the rest of my life, I
would fight to make sure that the next generation of
queer kids did not grow up feeling like that. So
a few weeks later, on November tenth, nineteen eighty eight,
I got up in a school assembly and I came
out to the entire school all at once, November tenth,
(03:36):
nineteen eighty eight, was a very different time. Ronald Reagan
was president. As I mentioned, only one state protected you
from discrimination based on sexual orientation, so what I did
was highly unusual for that time. But the next day,
a young girl stormed into my office and said, I
want to start a club to find homophobia. I was
kind of like, hello, nice to meet you, because she
(03:58):
wasn't my student or anything. And I said, tell me
why you care so much about this, and she said, oh,
that's easy. My mother's a lesbian and I'm tired of
hearing my family get put down around this school. Naive,
little twenty four year old me never thought about the
fact that there might be queer parents. And I said,
what do you want to call this club? And she said,
I don't know. You're gay and I'm straight. Let's call
(04:20):
it the Gay Straight Alliance.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Kevin and Matt Student ended up starting the country's first
ever gay straight alliance, a first step in a growing
momentum in both his life and the country.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
That was the first gay straight alliance in the world.
November eleventh, nineteen eighty eight, conquered Massachusetts, and it just
got a snowballed from there I ended up creating an
organization called GLISTEN, the Gay, Lesbian is Straight Education Network,
which worked to address anti queer bias and schools. In
nineteen ninety I ended up becoming its first executive director
(04:52):
in nineteen ninety four. I led it for fourteen years,
and I eventually became Assistant Secretary of Education for President Obama,
where I led a national campaign to address bullying in schools.
And I'm proud to say that when President Obama left
office in twenty sixteen, bullying was at the lowest level
it had ever been since we had started recording the
(05:13):
phenomenon in American schools. So for thirty years, I really
dedicated my life to trying to help young people. That
was really my mission. And happy ending to the story,
just you know the young man who wanted to kill himself.
He lives in Brooklyn now with his husband. They are
rehabilitating a brownstone. What could be gayer than that? And
(05:37):
I went to their wedding about fifteen years ago. And
the young woman who wanted to start the GSA, She's
married to a man, she has two kids. She lives
in Boston, and when I visited her a few years ago,
her lesbian mother, baby's at the grandkids, so everybody has
a happy ending to the story.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Oh my god, that is incredible. I mean, what has
it been like to have had such a foundational role
in the community's history, like moving it forward? Like personally,
what is that like for you?
Speaker 1 (06:06):
You know, I would call myself the accidental activist. I
wasn't planning. I had no career plan of any kind.
I just saw there was a problem and I wanted
to do something about it. It was pretty simple, you know.
I've been very fortunate to be given some incredible opportunities
(06:27):
to make a difference in the world. You know, when
I graduated from college, my mother pulled me aside and
whispered her favorite Bible verse in my ear. My parents
were fundamentalist Christians, and she said, Kevin, to who much
has been given, much will be expected. And I was
very aware, having been the first person in my family
(06:48):
to ever have the privilege of getting a college degree,
that I had a moral obligation to do what I
can to try to make the world better with it.
That it was more than just about going out out
there making some money. So I've been afforded some great
opportunities to do that, and I'm very grateful for them.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
From bathrooms to youth sports to who gets to become
a teacher, education in schools have served as a battleground
for many of the fights regarding a quality. Kevin says,
using and exploiting people's fears to hold back progress is
nothing new. Something that I see as a pattern in
your work and that I see today is the way
(07:27):
that education schools has been this battleground for LGBTQ folks
and the people who support them. It seems like that
was a part of your experience, and unfortunately it's something
that we're still seeing today.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Why do you think that?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Is great question, and I want to step back and
put this into an even broader historical context. Whenever the
dominant culture wants to panic people about a minority group,
what they say is they're after your kids. Supposedly Jews
(08:03):
drank the blood of Christian children and mis justified programs.
Supposedly black men were after little white girls and this
justified lynching. Supposedly the Roma stole children and this justified
putting them in concentration camps during the Nazi era, and
supposedly LGBTQ plus people recruit or to use today's terminology,
they groom people to be LGBTQ plus. So this is
(08:26):
a very effective tactic because people get very irrational if
they think their children are at risk, and I understand that.
You know, if you think somebody's gonna hurt your kid,
you're gonna be pretty mad pretty fast. And the reason
why our opponents keep digging this trope out and using
it over and over again is because it's effective.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
We've been here before in the seventies in Florida, after
a local ordinates granted gay people housing and employment protections,
meaning gay teachers couldn't be fired, Anita Bryant, a singer,
pageant queen and brand ambassador for the Florida Citrus Commission,
organized the Save Our Children campaign, which baselessly smeared LGBTQ
(09:08):
people as threats to children. Many cited as the first
organized opposition to the gay rights movement.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
When I was a kid, there was a named Anita
Bryant who was a beauty pageant queen, and she led
a campaign called Save Our Children, which led to the
repeal of the first LGBTQ plus rights ordinances that have
been passed in the seventies and eighties, and we're really
seeing that history replay again today. They're over a dozen
states now that have some version of a so called
(09:37):
don't say gay or trans law. It's not just Florida,
it's many states. And we're seeing all of this rhetoric
revived about how LGBTQ plus people groom and recruit and
they do it because it works. It's cynical. The fact
of the matter is the people who really abuse children
(10:00):
are almost exclusively heterosexual men, usually family members. Those are
the people who have used children. But that's not the
myth that's being put out there.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
And I know that LAMBA a lot of the big
wins and cases that you all take on do involve youth.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Can you tell me about some of those?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Sure, LAMBA legals been involved fighting for LGBTQ plus students
since we were founded fifty years ago in nineteen seventy three.
In fact, one of our very first cases in nineteen
seventy four, we helped win the right of the University
of New Hampshire gay student group to meet on campus,
which really led to the proliferation of queer student clubs
on college campuses nationwide. In nineteen ninety six, we went
(10:39):
to court on behalf of a young man named Jamie Nabusney.
Jamie was a high school student in Ashon, Wisconsin. He
was repeatedly beaten up and harassed in school. His family
complained to the school, the school did nothing, So finally
we took him on and we won the first federal
lawsuit holding schools accountable for failing to protect LGBTQ plus
students from bullying and harassment. And in two thousand we
(11:03):
represented Anthony Colleen, a student in the Orange County Unified
School District in southern California, who was told that he
could not have a gay Straight Alliance at GSA in
his school, and we won the federal right of students
to have GSAs in their schools. So Lamb Beligo has
been fighting for young people literally from the start. I'm
sorry to say that we are having to do so
(11:25):
again today in twenty twenty three. Unfortunately, as they say,
people who know history are doomed to watch idiots repeat it,
and we are indeed seeing that history being repeated. We
are in court against the Don't Say gay or trans
law in Florida. We will be going to court in
the other states to challenge that law. We're in court
in multiple states trying to defend the rights of trans
(11:47):
youth to get gender affirming care. The fight to ensure
the safety and well being of LGBTQ plus youth is
unfortunately not over, even though we've been fighting it for
five decades.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
I mean, I it's one of those things that I
wish this I wish this was were not fights that
you all had to take up.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I wish that we you know, when you.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Were first starting these fights, when you were younger, Like,
did you ever think that in twenty twenty three your
work would still be so important and so relevant.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yes and no. Yes. In that there's a great quote
by Kreta Scott King which I really like. She said,
freedom is never really won. You earn it and win
it in every generation. And I think that's true. I
do want to say that things are vastly better than
(12:44):
they were the year I was born. In nineteen sixty three,
it was illegal to be gay in forty nine states.
I don't want to paint a picture of complete gloom
and doom. We have made serious progress, but like as
King said, you have to earn it and win it
in every generation. Our opponents, I jokingly say, sometimes are
(13:06):
like the terminator. They just keep coming, they never stop.
And it was Thomas Jefferson who said the price of
liberty is eternal vigilance. We have to be vigilant. As
we saw with the Dobbs decision in the Supreme Court
last year, progress can be reversed very dramatically in this country.
(13:27):
In nineteen seventy three, the same year Land of Legal
was founded, the right of people to control their own
bodies was granted by the Supreme Court in Roe versus Wade,
and our opponents fought for forty nine years and finally
got that right taken away last year. So we can
never let down our guard because our opponents are determined
(13:48):
to impose their values on everyone else. And I really
think that's what this whole fight is about. It's bigger
than abortion. It's bigger than gender affirm care, it's bigger
than don't say gay. It's about this. We theoretically our
country where everyone has the right of life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness at lamb to legal. We believe
(14:09):
that every person has self determination, that they should decide
what to do with their lives, and that so long
as they're not hurting anybody else, that's up to them.
Our opponents fundamentally do not believe that. They believe that
they have the right to tell other people how to
live their lives. You know, there's that great bumperstick, or
(14:30):
don't like abortion, don't have one, you know, But our
opponents think they have the right to tell other people
how to live their lives, what to do with their bodies,
whether it be abortion or gender affirming care, what they
can say in schools, whether they can perform in drag
or not. They believe they have the right to tell
(14:50):
people how to live their lives. And legal we believe
that everybody has the right to live their life according
to their own values. Like I said, so long as
they're not hurting anybody else. And that's the fundamental fight
we're in in America right now, is is there really
going to be life liberty and the pursuit of happiness
for every individual in America, or as sadly has been
(15:11):
the case throughout our history, is it only going to
be some people that get it? You know, though some
people have traditionally been white, they've been male, they've been Christian,
they've been able bodied they've been cisgendered, they've been heterosexual.
Those are the people who get to choose how to
live their lives, and everybody else is in various ways
been restricted throughout American history. We're going to keep fighting
(15:32):
until there's no restrictions. That's what we're here to do.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
I'm so glad that you put it that way, and
I think it can be kind of tough to step
back and see the forest for the trees a little bit,
because you know, it's not about one piece of legislation
or one book that was banned or what like. It
is I believe fundamentally about whether people can live their
(15:55):
lives the way that they want to and it but
it sometimes it feels like that value is under attack
from so many different ways, so many different pressure points,
whether it's reproductive care or gender refirming care, or the
ability to read what you want to perform in drags.
How do we how do we like stay in the
(16:15):
fight with that understanding that even though we might be
fighting for, you know, to fight one piece of legislation today,
it's really about a broader attack on our rights and equality.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
You know, it's interesting the term intersectionality gets thrown around
a lot nowadays, but I really think we need to
understand that all these fights are truly intersectional. When I
was a kid, there used to be an ad campaign
for lazed potato chips, and then they used to say
that you can't stop with just one bigots don't stop
with just one group. They come after BIPOC people, they
(16:49):
come after women, they come after LGBTQ plus people. You
know they're they're trying to restrict the rights of many
groups of society because they fundamentally think they have the
right to tell us how to live our lives. And
we need to unite and recognize that all these fights
are connected. There's no such thing as a single issue
(17:13):
human being. All of us are complex people with multiple identities,
and we need to build a movement that recognizes that
all these issues are connected. And we need to stand
locked arm in arm to prevent this assault, which is
really fundamentally about taking away people's rights to live their
lives as they see fit.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
At our back.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Times are tough, but it's not without wins, and it's
not without hope. And the forces organizing against justice and
equality to forget that they want us to feel like
there is no reason for hope hopelessness as a kind
of disinformation campaign. Something you mentioned earlier that I want
to go back to that I think is really important
(18:12):
is that you know, when you're talking about attacks on
marginalized communities, oftentimes the stories of our.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Communities are very doom and gloom.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
And I completely understand why that is, because we are
facing like, very real attacks.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
But it's not all bad.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
And I know that LAMB Illegal has had some recent
wins lately. Can you tell me about those?
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Sure? Uh, First of all, if you look at where
we started with LAMB Legal fifty years ago. When we
were found in nineteen seventy three, being gay was illegal
in forty three states. Cross dressing was as they called
it back then, was illegal, So it was literally illegal
for trans people to express their gender. Homosexuality was a
(18:59):
mental illness for which you could be put in an
institution against your will. And we fought and we fought
and we fought. It took us thirty years, but we
got the laws that criminalized same sex relationships struck down
at the Supreme Court in two thousand and three in
Lawrens versus Texas. We fought for over twenty years, and
we run the right of same sex couples to marry
in twenty fifteen at the Supreme Court in Obergefell versus Hodges.
(19:22):
We fought for twenty years and we won the right
of people to be protected from being fired from their
job based on their sexual orientation or their gender identity
at the Supreme Court in twenty twenty. We have made
enormous progress and we're still winning. You know, I know
this is a very dark time. Nearly six hundred anti
LGBTQ plus bills were proposed this year and in forty
(19:45):
seven different states. The case you're curious, the only states
that didn't consider such a bill this year were Illinois,
New York, and Delaware. There was one in every other
state in the country. And I'll tell you a very
specific story which I'm very excited about, and this is
about a middle school girl in West Virginia named Becky
Pepper Jackson. Becky was in sixth grade when the state
(20:07):
of West Virginia banned young trans people from participating in
school sports. So we went to court. We represented Becky,
and we won at the district court, and Becky got
to be on their middle school cross country team. Then
the state appealed to the Circuit Court, and we went
to the circuit court and we won again, and Becky
got to be on her middle school cross country team again.
(20:28):
And then they appealed to the Supreme Court in April
of this year, and we went to the Supreme Court
and the justices voted with US seven to two. And
Becky's now in eighth grade and she's on the cross
country team. So I know we right now, it's easy
to feel defeated, but it's also important to recognize we're
still winning. Are we going to win every fight? Absolutely not.
(20:50):
That's not how social justice has won. You win some,
you lose some. But I am confident in the inn
We're going to win this fight. And the reason I'm
confident is I believe most Americans agree with us. Most
Americans don't want somebody else to tell them how to
live their life. And if we understand that, that's what
our opponents are trying to do. They're trying to win
(21:11):
the right to impose their belief system on people they
don't like and they don't agree with. I think most
Americans are going to say, Nope, I'm not down for that.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, I wonder.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
I mean, I completely agree, I'm vigorously nodding in my head.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
But one of the things I wonder is I have a.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Theory that the other side they know that what they're
proposing is unpopular. They know that it is wildly out
of sack with what most Americans want. I think that's
why they have to lie. They have to lie about
trans youth, they have to lie about gender reforming care.
If they were confident that people were on their side,
they would not have to misrepresent what their side is.
(21:51):
And so to me, that seems to suggest that, like
they know what they're selling, people aren't really buying. Do
you ever have that sense?
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Yeah, I think what they're doing is they're taking advantage
of people's ignorance on the issues. And let me be
very specific, over seventy percent of Americans think they've never
met a trans person. They probably have, they just didn't know.
But when you have over seventy percent of the people
who literally don't know a trans person, it's easy to
(22:21):
spread lies and misinformation. I think our other side is
very clever and very strategic. They pick things, they pick
the most vulnerable point, and they go after that. Like
let's take another example critical race theory. The vast majority
of Americans have absolutely no idea what critical race theory is,
(22:44):
but they've managed to make it into this bogey man
that's so evil and so bad. So what they do
is they take advantage of people's ignorance. And I know,
say ignorance as a pejorative, you could say in a
different way, which is lack of familiar people. I think
most Americans. I have an interesting conversation with an elderly
(23:07):
friend of mine recently and she said, you know, I
don't understand why people say black lives matter. Don't all
lives matter? And I said, well, Marcia, if you look
at American history, throughout American history, black lives have mattered less.
We were comfortable enslaving black people, we were comfortable segregating
black people, we were comfortable lynching black people. So you
(23:31):
need to say specifically that black lives matter, because throughout
American history they've been treated like they don't matter. And
she was like, I never thought of it that way.
That makes perfect sense. And we have a Black Lives
Matter vigil in my town every Sunday at two o'clock.
She now comes to the visual this seventy five year
old that'sis gender heterosexual, white woman comes to the visual
(23:53):
every Sunday now because she gets it now. So I
think one of the things we need to recommit ourselves
to do as move is to educate people. I think
there is a hardcore segment of American society that is
very bigoted and that will never change its mind. But
I think there's a much larger segment that is unfamiliar
(24:16):
and ignorant of the issues, and that if we take
the time to educate them, and we take the time
to explain how what our opponents are doing is really
against the fundamental principle of self determination. Nobody likes being
told how they can live their life, and I think
the vast majority of Americans can end up siding with us.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
More.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
After a quick break, let's get right back into it.
I agree with Kevin that most Americans would probably agree
that nobody should be told how to live their lives.
(25:00):
But at in a media and digital ecosystem that is
invested in turning up the temperature on these conversations and
amplifying and incentivizing the worst actors, and it certainly doesn't
always feel that way. That's such a positive, like forward looking,
affirming perspective. And I do think this is why the
other side, Like, I think that they are really good
(25:23):
at exploiting the people who maybe just don't know a
lot about it and don't spend a lot of time
thinking about it, and then turning the temperature up on
the conversation, you know, pushing at those tension points and
those fractures and those things that they know we're going
to get people kind of like riled up or to
have a big reaction when like, it's just we don't
(25:44):
really I don't think that we have a it's difficult
to have these conversations when so often they are happening
along these like existing tension points and pressure points that
really inflame the conversation.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Well, that's their whole strategy. Their strategy is to divide
and conquer and to take advantage of things where people
feel vulnerable and confused and unaware. And I will make
this prediction, particularly on trans issues, what they're doing is
going to backfire. And the reason it's going to backfire
(26:20):
is I wrote a textbook on LGBTQ plus history thirty
years ago for high school students, and I said, there's
two laws of LGBTQ plus history. Number one, the more
visible we are, the more we get attacked. And number two,
the more we are attacked, the more people come out
and fight back. As America, as more and more trans
(26:41):
people are coming out and parents of trans people are
speaking up and family of trans people are speaking up,
more and more Americans are coming to know trans people,
and the end, that's why we're going to win. Because
the number one most effective way to reduce bigotry towards
LGBTQ plus people has been shown over and over and
over again is if you actually know an LGBTQ plus
(27:03):
person personally. And the number of people who say they
don't know a trans person is going to keep dropping.
And the more people realize that trans people are their
neighbors and their family members and their coworkers and our
human beings like everyone else, these attacks will resonate less
(27:26):
and less and less. So what I'm thinking right now
is we just need to hold the line. We need
to hold the line because the next generation is going
to be very different. The Gallop Organization found last year
that one in five Generation Z members identifies as LGBTQ plus.
One in five. This generation is not going to have
(27:49):
this nonsense. So it's up to folks in my generation
to hold the line basically until the next generation comes
into the rescue. And I really believe that's what's going
to happen. So I think what they're doing short term
may be very effective. I mean, let's be honest, they've
passed laws in over twenty states this year. It's been
(28:10):
bad LAMBA legals role is the community's last line of defense.
We can't stop them from passing these laws in places
like North Carolina where I grew up. We don't have
the votes, but we can get them struck down in court,
and that's what we do every day. And if we
can hold the line until the next generation assumes the
(28:31):
leadership of this country, I think we're going to win.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
How do you see all of these issues playing out
in the upcoming election?
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Oh boy?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Well.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
I talk to a lot of folks who are younger
or for a variety of reasons, have been disenfranchised throughout history,
and they say, my vote doesn't matter. And I'll say
to them, you know what, the best evidence is that
your vote matters. The Republicans are trying to take it
away from you. If your vote didn't matter, why would
they be trying so hard to stop you from voting?
(29:05):
So I absolutely think because remember, if you add up
the so called minorities in America, BIPOC folks, women, LGBTQ
plus people, and obviously there's people who are all of
those things. We're the majority. So we have to educate
and mobilize the people who agree with us and get
(29:27):
them out to vote. And if we do that, we're
going to win.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
But if you had a crystal ball and you're looking
into the future, what would you like for the future
to be like for our communities? What would you like
to see for our communities ten years down the line,
twenty years down the line.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Oh boy. First, of all, communities is very complicated. There's many, many,
many different communities, so that's a very complicated question. But
I guess my dream. I'll speak specifically about LGBTQ plus people.
I would like to dream that someday a same SIS
(30:05):
couple could walk down the street in any town in
any state anywhere in America and not even think about
whether or not they're safe. They don't think about it.
I would like to see, in fact, the whole notion
of coming out go away, because I would like to
live in a world in which people just grow up
and they are who they are, and you don't need
(30:27):
to come out as trans or come out as gay,
because from day one, you're free to be who you
want to be, and nobody thinks it's odd if you
are LGBTQ plus that's just well, that's just who you are.
That would be the ultimate side of victory to me
is if the notion of coming out went away because
people were just free to be who they authentically were
(30:48):
from day one and they didn't need to come out
at some point in their life.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
That's so beautiful, Like, what a beautiful vision for the future.
I really like.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
That time when things can feel so understandably heavy and tough,
leaning into joy can be a form of resistance. Our
opponents want us trained and defeated, so abundance, love, happiness,
and joy can be defiant. We talked about how these
(31:18):
fights are long and how it's you know, there's so
many different attacks out there. But something that I like
about Lambda is that you all do a great job
of connecting to joy and resilience and abundance. Right like
you party, you just had your big fifty year celebration.
How do you stay connected to that joy and that
(31:39):
abundance in these fights?
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Oh gosh, that's a great question.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
For me.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
My big hero was Congressman John Lewis, and Congressman John
Lewis went through a lot. He literally had his skull
fractures on the Edmund Pettis Bridge and Selma in the
nineteen sixties marching for voting rights. But I never ever
ever saw Congressman Lewis depressed because of two reasons. I
(32:15):
asked them this once. I said, how are you always
so cheerful? And he said, because, Kevin, I believe in
the beloved community, and that's what we're working for, a
community where we each love each other. And I'll never
forget him saying that to me. And I think that,
(32:35):
in the end is what we need to realize. What
our opponents would like to do is to convince us
that we can't make a difference, is to convince us
that the world cannot change, is to convince us that
this kind of crap is inevitable. They're lying to us,
(32:58):
we can change the world, and we can have fun
while we're doing it. So don't let them take away
your joy. Don't let them take away your hope. Don't
let them take away your sense of power, because if
they succeed in doing that, things will indeed never change.
(33:19):
So I'm not going to give them the satisfaction. I'm
not doing it. I am going to dance and I'm
going to tell jokes and I'm going to have fun
while I'm fighting for justice, and I urge you all
do the same.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
I know folks are fired up, like I'm on the
fridship tears listening to you talk about this. For folks
who want to get involved, what should they be doing?
Where can they go to find out more?
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Well, okay, let me say give two answer to that.
First of all, obviously, if you want to learn about
LAMBDA Legal, go to lambdillegal dot org. But I want
to remind people, no matter who you are in the world,
you have four assets your voice, your vote, your time,
and your money. And what I mean by that is,
first of all, your voice. When I worked in Washington,
I learned that there's an intern in every congressional office
(34:10):
who tallies up how many calls they got that day
and what they were about, and they report it to
the congress person. Speak up, call your congress person, March.
Use your voice. Secondly, vote vote in every election. Did
you know that the average school board election turnout is
only fifteen percent. That means that if you can get
(34:31):
eight percent of the voters in your community to vote
for you, because that's a majority of fifteen percent, or
approximately one out of every thirteen people, you get to
run the schools in your community. So vote every time,
not just in the presidentials. Your time. I know a
lot of people work in multiple jobs. They may not
have a lot of time. But whatever time you have,
(34:53):
get involved. Volunteer your time, get involved with your local
community center or a local political organization. And then, finally,
if you're lucky enough to have a few extra dollars,
remember that over seventy percent of charitable giving in this
country comes from individuals, people like you and me. People
think corporations and foundations pay for charity. That's bs average
(35:15):
people pay for charity in this country. So if you
can spare a few dollars, give it to an organization
you really believe in. So use your voice, your vote,
your time, and your money. And we'd love to welcome
you to the Land of Legal Family. If you want
to go to Landollegal dot org.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
I like how you put that, because somebody might not
have a lot of money, but they might have a
big platform. They might not have a lot of time,
but they can vote. Like you can always find your
way to help and your way to feel like you're
really leaning into the fight.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Thank you. I really believe that if we all do
what we can do, we're going to be okay. And
everybody can do something. There's a saying in the Talmud,
the Jewish holy book, that you are not responsible for
(36:05):
saving the world, but neither are you exempt from doing
your part to do so. So no one of us.
I don't believe in the so called great nand theory
of history where like there's like a big white savior
who rides to the rescue. That's bs. That's not how
change happens. Change happens because everyday people stand up and
(36:27):
say I'm not going to do this anymore. No, And
if we all do our part, and some may be voting,
some may be giving money, some may be volunteering their time,
some may be marching, but figure out what your part is.
When Trump got elected, people ask me what should I do?
What should I do? I said, what are you good at?
(36:48):
If you're an artist, make great art. If you're rich,
write a check. Whatever you've got, use it. And we've
all got different gifts, and we've all got different talents.
And if we just use our own unique gifts together
collectively as a movement, we will win this.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
I believe that we will win.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or
just want to say hi? You can reach us at
Hello at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts
for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No
Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod.
It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative Jonathan Strickland
is our executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and
sound engineer. Michael Almado is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
(37:40):
Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate
and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Who w
Don't let them take away your joy, don't let them
take away your hope, don't let them take away your
sense of power, because if they succeed in doing that,
things will indeed ever change.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
There Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridget
Todd and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
October eleventh is National Coming Out Day. We spend a
lot of time on this podcast talking about the very
real threats facing the LGBTQ plus community, and while there
(00:41):
are many fights ahead, it's important not to lose sight
of all the wins we've had for quality, because we're winning.
Just asked Kevin Jennings.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
My name is Kevin Jennings, I use hee him pronouns,
and I'm the CEO of LAMB I Llegal, which is
America's oldest LGBTQ plus legal right organization LAMBDA Legals.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Lawyers have won precedent setting civil rights cases on everything
from marriage equality to expressions of gender identity to healthcare discrimination.
But before Kevin was a CEO of the oldest LGBTQ
legal rights organization in the country, he was an educator
just worried about his students. So, Kevin, you actually started
your career as an educator, right, like fighting discrimination for educators.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Tell me about that.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Sure. So I began my career as a high school
teacher in nineteen eighty five. I'm a first generation college graduate.
I was the first person in my family to go
to college, and so I wanted to go back into
the classroom and try to help young people have the
opportunities that I had had, which no one else in
my family had ever had before. My father only had
(01:49):
a tenth grade education, my mother only had a sixth
grade education. We were very poor growing up. I grew
up in a trailer park on an unpaved dirt road
and unincorporated town in North Carolina, and I was raised
very much with this philosophy of giving back. So I
became a teacher and I lost my first job because
(02:10):
I was gay in Providence, Rhode Island. You have to remember,
in nineteen eighty five, there was only one state that
band discrimination based on sexual orientation, and for people who
don't know, it was Wisconsin, which comes as a surprise
to many people. So if you lost your job because
you were gay, there was nothing you could do about it.
So when I went to my second job, I was
(02:31):
very nervous about kids finding out that I was gay.
And I have some advice for LGBTQ plus teachers, which is, y'all,
it's a glass closet. The kids always know who the
queer teacher is. And sure enough I had a student
who was gay come to me and come out and
say to me he was thinking of killing himself. I
(02:54):
was twenty four, I had no training, so the first
thing I could think of to say was, let's go
see accounts. And he said to me something that changed
the course of my life. He said, why shouldn't I
kill myself? My life isn't worth saving anyway. And that
took me back to my own adolescence in North Carolina,
(03:14):
where I had tried to kill myself when I was sixteen,
and I made myself a little promise that day that
whatever I did with the rest of my life, I
would fight to make sure that the next generation of
queer kids did not grow up feeling like that. So
a few weeks later, on November tenth, nineteen eighty eight,
I got up in a school assembly and I came
out to the entire school all at once, November tenth,
(03:36):
nineteen eighty eight, was a very different time. Ronald Reagan
was president. As I mentioned, only one state protected you
from discrimination based on sexual orientation, so what I did
was highly unusual for that time. But the next day,
a young girl stormed into my office and said, I
want to start a club to find homophobia. I was
kind of like, hello, nice to meet you, because she
(03:58):
wasn't my student or anything. And I said, tell me
why you care so much about this, and she said, oh,
that's easy. My mother's a lesbian and I'm tired of
hearing my family get put down around this school. Naive,
little twenty four year old me never thought about the
fact that there might be queer parents. And I said,
what do you want to call this club? And she said,
I don't know. You're gay and I'm straight. Let's call
(04:20):
it the Gay Straight Alliance.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Kevin and Matt Student ended up starting the country's first
ever gay straight alliance, a first step in a growing
momentum in both his life and the country.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
That was the first gay straight alliance in the world.
November eleventh, nineteen eighty eight, conquered Massachusetts, and it just
got a snowballed from there I ended up creating an
organization called GLISTEN, the Gay, Lesbian is Straight Education Network,
which worked to address anti queer bias and schools. In
nineteen ninety I ended up becoming its first executive director
(04:52):
in nineteen ninety four. I led it for fourteen years,
and I eventually became Assistant Secretary of Education for President Obama,
where I led a national campaign to address bullying in schools.
And I'm proud to say that when President Obama left
office in twenty sixteen, bullying was at the lowest level
it had ever been since we had started recording the
(05:13):
phenomenon in American schools. So for thirty years, I really
dedicated my life to trying to help young people. That
was really my mission. And happy ending to the story,
just you know the young man who wanted to kill himself.
He lives in Brooklyn now with his husband. They are
rehabilitating a brownstone. What could be gayer than that? And
(05:37):
I went to their wedding about fifteen years ago. And
the young woman who wanted to start the GSA, She's
married to a man, she has two kids. She lives
in Boston, and when I visited her a few years ago,
her lesbian mother, baby's at the grandkids, so everybody has
a happy ending to the story.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Oh my god, that is incredible. I mean, what has
it been like to have had such a foundational role
in the community's history, like moving it forward? Like personally,
what is that like for you?
Speaker 1 (06:06):
You know, I would call myself the accidental activist. I
wasn't planning. I had no career plan of any kind.
I just saw there was a problem and I wanted
to do something about it. It was pretty simple, you know.
I've been very fortunate to be given some incredible opportunities
(06:27):
to make a difference in the world. You know, when
I graduated from college, my mother pulled me aside and
whispered her favorite Bible verse in my ear. My parents
were fundamentalist Christians, and she said, Kevin, to who much
has been given, much will be expected. And I was
very aware, having been the first person in my family
(06:48):
to ever have the privilege of getting a college degree,
that I had a moral obligation to do what I
can to try to make the world better with it.
That it was more than just about going out out
there making some money. So I've been afforded some great
opportunities to do that, and I'm very grateful for them.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
From bathrooms to youth sports to who gets to become
a teacher, education in schools have served as a battleground
for many of the fights regarding a quality. Kevin says,
using and exploiting people's fears to hold back progress is
nothing new. Something that I see as a pattern in
your work and that I see today is the way
(07:27):
that education schools has been this battleground for LGBTQ folks
and the people who support them. It seems like that
was a part of your experience, and unfortunately it's something
that we're still seeing today.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Why do you think that?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Is great question, and I want to step back and
put this into an even broader historical context. Whenever the
dominant culture wants to panic people about a minority group,
what they say is they're after your kids. Supposedly Jews
(08:03):
drank the blood of Christian children and mis justified programs.
Supposedly black men were after little white girls and this
justified lynching. Supposedly the Roma stole children and this justified
putting them in concentration camps during the Nazi era, and
supposedly LGBTQ plus people recruit or to use today's terminology,
they groom people to be LGBTQ plus. So this is
(08:26):
a very effective tactic because people get very irrational if
they think their children are at risk, and I understand that.
You know, if you think somebody's gonna hurt your kid,
you're gonna be pretty mad pretty fast. And the reason
why our opponents keep digging this trope out and using
it over and over again is because it's effective.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
We've been here before in the seventies in Florida, after
a local ordinates granted gay people housing and employment protections,
meaning gay teachers couldn't be fired, Anita Bryant, a singer,
pageant queen and brand ambassador for the Florida Citrus Commission,
organized the Save Our Children campaign, which baselessly smeared LGBTQ
(09:08):
people as threats to children. Many cited as the first
organized opposition to the gay rights movement.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
When I was a kid, there was a named Anita
Bryant who was a beauty pageant queen, and she led
a campaign called Save Our Children, which led to the
repeal of the first LGBTQ plus rights ordinances that have
been passed in the seventies and eighties, and we're really
seeing that history replay again today. They're over a dozen
states now that have some version of a so called
(09:37):
don't say gay or trans law. It's not just Florida,
it's many states. And we're seeing all of this rhetoric
revived about how LGBTQ plus people groom and recruit and
they do it because it works. It's cynical. The fact
of the matter is the people who really abuse children
(10:00):
are almost exclusively heterosexual men, usually family members. Those are
the people who have used children. But that's not the
myth that's being put out there.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
And I know that LAMBA a lot of the big
wins and cases that you all take on do involve youth.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Can you tell me about some of those?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Sure, LAMBA legals been involved fighting for LGBTQ plus students
since we were founded fifty years ago in nineteen seventy three.
In fact, one of our very first cases in nineteen
seventy four, we helped win the right of the University
of New Hampshire gay student group to meet on campus,
which really led to the proliferation of queer student clubs
on college campuses nationwide. In nineteen ninety six, we went
(10:39):
to court on behalf of a young man named Jamie Nabusney.
Jamie was a high school student in Ashon, Wisconsin. He
was repeatedly beaten up and harassed in school. His family
complained to the school, the school did nothing, So finally
we took him on and we won the first federal
lawsuit holding schools accountable for failing to protect LGBTQ plus
students from bullying and harassment. And in two thousand we
(11:03):
represented Anthony Colleen, a student in the Orange County Unified
School District in southern California, who was told that he
could not have a gay Straight Alliance at GSA in
his school, and we won the federal right of students
to have GSAs in their schools. So Lamb Beligo has
been fighting for young people literally from the start. I'm
sorry to say that we are having to do so
(11:25):
again today in twenty twenty three. Unfortunately, as they say,
people who know history are doomed to watch idiots repeat it,
and we are indeed seeing that history being repeated. We
are in court against the Don't Say gay or trans
law in Florida. We will be going to court in
the other states to challenge that law. We're in court
in multiple states trying to defend the rights of trans
(11:47):
youth to get gender affirming care. The fight to ensure
the safety and well being of LGBTQ plus youth is
unfortunately not over, even though we've been fighting it for
five decades.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
I mean, I it's one of those things that I
wish this I wish this was were not fights that
you all had to take up.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I wish that we you know, when you.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Were first starting these fights, when you were younger, Like,
did you ever think that in twenty twenty three your
work would still be so important and so relevant.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yes and no. Yes. In that there's a great quote
by Kreta Scott King which I really like. She said,
freedom is never really won. You earn it and win
it in every generation. And I think that's true. I
do want to say that things are vastly better than
(12:44):
they were the year I was born. In nineteen sixty three,
it was illegal to be gay in forty nine states.
I don't want to paint a picture of complete gloom
and doom. We have made serious progress, but like as
King said, you have to earn it and win it
in every generation. Our opponents, I jokingly say, sometimes are
(13:06):
like the terminator. They just keep coming, they never stop.
And it was Thomas Jefferson who said the price of
liberty is eternal vigilance. We have to be vigilant. As
we saw with the Dobbs decision in the Supreme Court
last year, progress can be reversed very dramatically in this country.
(13:27):
In nineteen seventy three, the same year Land of Legal
was founded, the right of people to control their own
bodies was granted by the Supreme Court in Roe versus Wade,
and our opponents fought for forty nine years and finally
got that right taken away last year. So we can
never let down our guard because our opponents are determined
(13:48):
to impose their values on everyone else. And I really
think that's what this whole fight is about. It's bigger
than abortion. It's bigger than gender affirm care, it's bigger
than don't say gay. It's about this. We theoretically our
country where everyone has the right of life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness at lamb to legal. We believe
(14:09):
that every person has self determination, that they should decide
what to do with their lives, and that so long
as they're not hurting anybody else, that's up to them.
Our opponents fundamentally do not believe that. They believe that
they have the right to tell other people how to
live their lives. You know, there's that great bumperstick, or
(14:30):
don't like abortion, don't have one, you know, But our
opponents think they have the right to tell other people
how to live their lives, what to do with their bodies,
whether it be abortion or gender affirming care, what they
can say in schools, whether they can perform in drag
or not. They believe they have the right to tell
(14:50):
people how to live their lives. And legal we believe
that everybody has the right to live their life according
to their own values. Like I said, so long as
they're not hurting anybody else. And that's the fundamental fight
we're in in America right now, is is there really
going to be life liberty and the pursuit of happiness
for every individual in America, or as sadly has been
(15:11):
the case throughout our history, is it only going to
be some people that get it? You know, though some
people have traditionally been white, they've been male, they've been Christian,
they've been able bodied they've been cisgendered, they've been heterosexual.
Those are the people who get to choose how to
live their lives, and everybody else is in various ways
been restricted throughout American history. We're going to keep fighting
(15:32):
until there's no restrictions. That's what we're here to do.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
I'm so glad that you put it that way, and
I think it can be kind of tough to step
back and see the forest for the trees a little bit,
because you know, it's not about one piece of legislation
or one book that was banned or what like. It
is I believe fundamentally about whether people can live their
(15:55):
lives the way that they want to and it but
it sometimes it feels like that value is under attack
from so many different ways, so many different pressure points,
whether it's reproductive care or gender refirming care, or the
ability to read what you want to perform in drags.
How do we how do we like stay in the
(16:15):
fight with that understanding that even though we might be
fighting for, you know, to fight one piece of legislation today,
it's really about a broader attack on our rights and equality.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
You know, it's interesting the term intersectionality gets thrown around
a lot nowadays, but I really think we need to
understand that all these fights are truly intersectional. When I
was a kid, there used to be an ad campaign
for lazed potato chips, and then they used to say
that you can't stop with just one bigots don't stop
with just one group. They come after BIPOC people, they
(16:49):
come after women, they come after LGBTQ plus people. You
know they're they're trying to restrict the rights of many
groups of society because they fundamentally think they have the
right to tell us how to live our lives. And
we need to unite and recognize that all these fights
are connected. There's no such thing as a single issue
(17:13):
human being. All of us are complex people with multiple identities,
and we need to build a movement that recognizes that
all these issues are connected. And we need to stand
locked arm in arm to prevent this assault, which is
really fundamentally about taking away people's rights to live their
lives as they see fit.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
At our back.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Times are tough, but it's not without wins, and it's
not without hope. And the forces organizing against justice and
equality to forget that they want us to feel like
there is no reason for hope hopelessness as a kind
of disinformation campaign. Something you mentioned earlier that I want
to go back to that I think is really important
(18:12):
is that you know, when you're talking about attacks on
marginalized communities, oftentimes the stories of our.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Communities are very doom and gloom.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
And I completely understand why that is, because we are
facing like, very real attacks.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
But it's not all bad.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
And I know that LAMB Illegal has had some recent
wins lately. Can you tell me about those?
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Sure? Uh, First of all, if you look at where
we started with LAMB Legal fifty years ago. When we
were found in nineteen seventy three, being gay was illegal
in forty three states. Cross dressing was as they called
it back then, was illegal, So it was literally illegal
for trans people to express their gender. Homosexuality was a
(18:59):
mental illness for which you could be put in an
institution against your will. And we fought and we fought
and we fought. It took us thirty years, but we
got the laws that criminalized same sex relationships struck down
at the Supreme Court in two thousand and three in
Lawrens versus Texas. We fought for over twenty years, and
we run the right of same sex couples to marry
in twenty fifteen at the Supreme Court in Obergefell versus Hodges.
(19:22):
We fought for twenty years and we won the right
of people to be protected from being fired from their
job based on their sexual orientation or their gender identity
at the Supreme Court in twenty twenty. We have made
enormous progress and we're still winning. You know, I know
this is a very dark time. Nearly six hundred anti
LGBTQ plus bills were proposed this year and in forty
(19:45):
seven different states. The case you're curious, the only states
that didn't consider such a bill this year were Illinois,
New York, and Delaware. There was one in every other
state in the country. And I'll tell you a very
specific story which I'm very excited about, and this is
about a middle school girl in West Virginia named Becky
Pepper Jackson. Becky was in sixth grade when the state
(20:07):
of West Virginia banned young trans people from participating in
school sports. So we went to court. We represented Becky,
and we won at the district court, and Becky got
to be on their middle school cross country team. Then
the state appealed to the Circuit Court, and we went
to the circuit court and we won again, and Becky
got to be on her middle school cross country team again.
(20:28):
And then they appealed to the Supreme Court in April
of this year, and we went to the Supreme Court
and the justices voted with US seven to two. And
Becky's now in eighth grade and she's on the cross
country team. So I know we right now, it's easy
to feel defeated, but it's also important to recognize we're
still winning. Are we going to win every fight? Absolutely not.
(20:50):
That's not how social justice has won. You win some,
you lose some. But I am confident in the inn
We're going to win this fight. And the reason I'm
confident is I believe most Americans agree with us. Most
Americans don't want somebody else to tell them how to
live their life. And if we understand that, that's what
our opponents are trying to do. They're trying to win
(21:11):
the right to impose their belief system on people they
don't like and they don't agree with. I think most
Americans are going to say, Nope, I'm not down for that.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, I wonder.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
I mean, I completely agree, I'm vigorously nodding in my head.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
But one of the things I wonder is I have a.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Theory that the other side they know that what they're
proposing is unpopular. They know that it is wildly out
of sack with what most Americans want. I think that's
why they have to lie. They have to lie about
trans youth, they have to lie about gender reforming care.
If they were confident that people were on their side,
they would not have to misrepresent what their side is.
(21:51):
And so to me, that seems to suggest that, like
they know what they're selling, people aren't really buying. Do
you ever have that sense?
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Yeah, I think what they're doing is they're taking advantage
of people's ignorance on the issues. And let me be
very specific, over seventy percent of Americans think they've never
met a trans person. They probably have, they just didn't know.
But when you have over seventy percent of the people
who literally don't know a trans person, it's easy to
(22:21):
spread lies and misinformation. I think our other side is
very clever and very strategic. They pick things, they pick
the most vulnerable point, and they go after that. Like
let's take another example critical race theory. The vast majority
of Americans have absolutely no idea what critical race theory is,
(22:44):
but they've managed to make it into this bogey man
that's so evil and so bad. So what they do
is they take advantage of people's ignorance. And I know,
say ignorance as a pejorative, you could say in a
different way, which is lack of familiar people. I think
most Americans. I have an interesting conversation with an elderly
(23:07):
friend of mine recently and she said, you know, I
don't understand why people say black lives matter. Don't all
lives matter? And I said, well, Marcia, if you look
at American history, throughout American history, black lives have mattered less.
We were comfortable enslaving black people, we were comfortable segregating
black people, we were comfortable lynching black people. So you
(23:31):
need to say specifically that black lives matter, because throughout
American history they've been treated like they don't matter. And
she was like, I never thought of it that way.
That makes perfect sense. And we have a Black Lives
Matter vigil in my town every Sunday at two o'clock.
She now comes to the visual this seventy five year
old that'sis gender heterosexual, white woman comes to the visual
(23:53):
every Sunday now because she gets it now. So I
think one of the things we need to recommit ourselves
to do as move is to educate people. I think
there is a hardcore segment of American society that is
very bigoted and that will never change its mind. But
I think there's a much larger segment that is unfamiliar
(24:16):
and ignorant of the issues, and that if we take
the time to educate them, and we take the time
to explain how what our opponents are doing is really
against the fundamental principle of self determination. Nobody likes being
told how they can live their life, and I think
the vast majority of Americans can end up siding with us.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
More.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
After a quick break, let's get right back into it.
I agree with Kevin that most Americans would probably agree
that nobody should be told how to live their lives.
(25:00):
But at in a media and digital ecosystem that is
invested in turning up the temperature on these conversations and
amplifying and incentivizing the worst actors, and it certainly doesn't
always feel that way. That's such a positive, like forward looking,
affirming perspective. And I do think this is why the
other side, Like, I think that they are really good
(25:23):
at exploiting the people who maybe just don't know a
lot about it and don't spend a lot of time
thinking about it, and then turning the temperature up on
the conversation, you know, pushing at those tension points and
those fractures and those things that they know we're going
to get people kind of like riled up or to
have a big reaction when like, it's just we don't
(25:44):
really I don't think that we have a it's difficult
to have these conversations when so often they are happening
along these like existing tension points and pressure points that
really inflame the conversation.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Well, that's their whole strategy. Their strategy is to divide
and conquer and to take advantage of things where people
feel vulnerable and confused and unaware. And I will make
this prediction, particularly on trans issues, what they're doing is
going to backfire. And the reason it's going to backfire
(26:20):
is I wrote a textbook on LGBTQ plus history thirty
years ago for high school students, and I said, there's
two laws of LGBTQ plus history. Number one, the more
visible we are, the more we get attacked. And number two,
the more we are attacked, the more people come out
and fight back. As America, as more and more trans
(26:41):
people are coming out and parents of trans people are
speaking up and family of trans people are speaking up,
more and more Americans are coming to know trans people,
and the end, that's why we're going to win. Because
the number one most effective way to reduce bigotry towards
LGBTQ plus people has been shown over and over and
over again is if you actually know an LGBTQ plus
(27:03):
person personally. And the number of people who say they
don't know a trans person is going to keep dropping.
And the more people realize that trans people are their
neighbors and their family members and their coworkers and our
human beings like everyone else, these attacks will resonate less
(27:26):
and less and less. So what I'm thinking right now
is we just need to hold the line. We need
to hold the line because the next generation is going
to be very different. The Gallop Organization found last year
that one in five Generation Z members identifies as LGBTQ plus.
One in five. This generation is not going to have
(27:49):
this nonsense. So it's up to folks in my generation
to hold the line basically until the next generation comes
into the rescue. And I really believe that's what's going
to happen. So I think what they're doing short term
may be very effective. I mean, let's be honest, they've
passed laws in over twenty states this year. It's been
(28:10):
bad LAMBA legals role is the community's last line of defense.
We can't stop them from passing these laws in places
like North Carolina where I grew up. We don't have
the votes, but we can get them struck down in court,
and that's what we do every day. And if we
can hold the line until the next generation assumes the
(28:31):
leadership of this country, I think we're going to win.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
How do you see all of these issues playing out
in the upcoming election?
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Oh boy?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Well.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
I talk to a lot of folks who are younger
or for a variety of reasons, have been disenfranchised throughout history,
and they say, my vote doesn't matter. And I'll say
to them, you know what, the best evidence is that
your vote matters. The Republicans are trying to take it
away from you. If your vote didn't matter, why would
they be trying so hard to stop you from voting?
(29:05):
So I absolutely think because remember, if you add up
the so called minorities in America, BIPOC folks, women, LGBTQ
plus people, and obviously there's people who are all of
those things. We're the majority. So we have to educate
and mobilize the people who agree with us and get
(29:27):
them out to vote. And if we do that, we're
going to win.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
But if you had a crystal ball and you're looking
into the future, what would you like for the future
to be like for our communities? What would you like
to see for our communities ten years down the line,
twenty years down the line.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Oh boy. First, of all, communities is very complicated. There's many, many,
many different communities, so that's a very complicated question. But
I guess my dream. I'll speak specifically about LGBTQ plus people.
I would like to dream that someday a same SIS
(30:05):
couple could walk down the street in any town in
any state anywhere in America and not even think about
whether or not they're safe. They don't think about it.
I would like to see, in fact, the whole notion
of coming out go away, because I would like to
live in a world in which people just grow up
and they are who they are, and you don't need
(30:27):
to come out as trans or come out as gay,
because from day one, you're free to be who you
want to be, and nobody thinks it's odd if you
are LGBTQ plus that's just well, that's just who you are.
That would be the ultimate side of victory to me
is if the notion of coming out went away because
people were just free to be who they authentically were
(30:48):
from day one and they didn't need to come out
at some point in their life.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
That's so beautiful, Like, what a beautiful vision for the future.
I really like.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
That time when things can feel so understandably heavy and tough,
leaning into joy can be a form of resistance. Our
opponents want us trained and defeated, so abundance, love, happiness,
and joy can be defiant. We talked about how these
(31:18):
fights are long and how it's you know, there's so
many different attacks out there. But something that I like
about Lambda is that you all do a great job
of connecting to joy and resilience and abundance. Right like
you party, you just had your big fifty year celebration.
How do you stay connected to that joy and that
(31:39):
abundance in these fights?
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Oh gosh, that's a great question.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
For me.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
My big hero was Congressman John Lewis, and Congressman John
Lewis went through a lot. He literally had his skull
fractures on the Edmund Pettis Bridge and Selma in the
nineteen sixties marching for voting rights. But I never ever
ever saw Congressman Lewis depressed because of two reasons. I
(32:15):
asked them this once. I said, how are you always
so cheerful? And he said, because, Kevin, I believe in
the beloved community, and that's what we're working for, a
community where we each love each other. And I'll never
forget him saying that to me. And I think that,
(32:35):
in the end is what we need to realize. What
our opponents would like to do is to convince us
that we can't make a difference, is to convince us
that the world cannot change, is to convince us that
this kind of crap is inevitable. They're lying to us,
(32:58):
we can change the world, and we can have fun
while we're doing it. So don't let them take away
your joy. Don't let them take away your hope. Don't
let them take away your sense of power, because if
they succeed in doing that, things will indeed never change.
(33:19):
So I'm not going to give them the satisfaction. I'm
not doing it. I am going to dance and I'm
going to tell jokes and I'm going to have fun
while I'm fighting for justice, and I urge you all
do the same.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
I know folks are fired up, like I'm on the
fridship tears listening to you talk about this. For folks
who want to get involved, what should they be doing?
Where can they go to find out more?
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Well, okay, let me say give two answer to that.
First of all, obviously, if you want to learn about
LAMBDA Legal, go to lambdillegal dot org. But I want
to remind people, no matter who you are in the world,
you have four assets your voice, your vote, your time,
and your money. And what I mean by that is,
first of all, your voice. When I worked in Washington,
I learned that there's an intern in every congressional office
(34:10):
who tallies up how many calls they got that day
and what they were about, and they report it to
the congress person. Speak up, call your congress person, March.
Use your voice. Secondly, vote vote in every election. Did
you know that the average school board election turnout is
only fifteen percent. That means that if you can get
(34:31):
eight percent of the voters in your community to vote
for you, because that's a majority of fifteen percent, or
approximately one out of every thirteen people, you get to
run the schools in your community. So vote every time,
not just in the presidentials. Your time. I know a
lot of people work in multiple jobs. They may not
have a lot of time. But whatever time you have,
(34:53):
get involved. Volunteer your time, get involved with your local
community center or a local political organization. And then, finally,
if you're lucky enough to have a few extra dollars,
remember that over seventy percent of charitable giving in this
country comes from individuals, people like you and me. People
think corporations and foundations pay for charity. That's bs average
(35:15):
people pay for charity in this country. So if you
can spare a few dollars, give it to an organization
you really believe in. So use your voice, your vote,
your time, and your money. And we'd love to welcome
you to the Land of Legal Family. If you want
to go to Landollegal dot org.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
I like how you put that, because somebody might not
have a lot of money, but they might have a
big platform. They might not have a lot of time,
but they can vote. Like you can always find your
way to help and your way to feel like you're
really leaning into the fight.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Thank you. I really believe that if we all do
what we can do, we're going to be okay. And
everybody can do something. There's a saying in the Talmud,
the Jewish holy book, that you are not responsible for
(36:05):
saving the world, but neither are you exempt from doing
your part to do so. So no one of us.
I don't believe in the so called great nand theory
of history where like there's like a big white savior
who rides to the rescue. That's bs. That's not how
change happens. Change happens because everyday people stand up and
(36:27):
say I'm not going to do this anymore. No, And
if we all do our part, and some may be voting,
some may be giving money, some may be volunteering their time,
some may be marching, but figure out what your part is.
When Trump got elected, people ask me what should I do?
What should I do? I said, what are you good at?
(36:48):
If you're an artist, make great art. If you're rich,
write a check. Whatever you've got, use it. And we've
all got different gifts, and we've all got different talents.
And if we just use our own unique gifts together
collectively as a movement, we will win this.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
I believe that we will win.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or
just want to say hi? You can reach us at
Hello at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts
for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No
Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod.
It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative Jonathan Strickland
is our executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and
sound engineer. Michael Almado is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
(37:40):
Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate
and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Who w
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