I thought ambivalence about supporting trans rights was responsible at first, but the fascists are coming after drag and books mentioning gay and lesbian parents now. It's not that there's no response, just nowhere near the activation and sense of urgency the LGBTQ+ community needs right now.

If I could get them to comment I'd want to know what place they envision their organizations having in a world where rights are rapidly receding and LGBTQ+ people are going back into the closet.

@e_urq been thinking about this a lot, as someone trying to stand up an org in Alabama

I think the most dangerous part of this is the expectation (mostly from white cis liberals, ime) that national orgs will step in at all. we were dealing with more anti-queer bills in the legislature this year than I can count, and I haven't heard a peep from anyone working nationally on this

and yet, on an organizing call with dozens of people on it a few weeks ago, someone cited "waiting for national orgs to do it", specifically HRC, as a reason not to build out our own messaging/letter writing campaigns/etc against this type of legislation. ime, they aren't currently set up to carefully watch bills moving through state houses, and frankly don't seem to have any interest in doing so

the lesson, at least for me, has been this: we (individuals) can, should, and really must step in and build the infrastructure to fight against this stuff locally, or nobody will do it at all. we can just do it -- no such thing as being underqualified for this work, all you need is the ability to build relationships with other folks, and the strength to ask those folks to act

we (other organizers, but also myself and a bunch of close friends) did this -- building out issue campaign infrastructure (form letters, flyers, tools to call reps, talking points) for three pretty bad bills (HB354, 401, 405) this session -- and it seems to have worked (fingers crossed, we haven't adjourned sine die yet but expecting that on Thursday). 354 didn't pass out of committee, 405 didn't get scheduled on the House calendar in time, and 401 never got attention at all. some of this is related to timing, when they got introduced etc, but I think our collective, local work made a real impact

@e_urq

"They" are really "you." (Rethorical "you.")

If you want that change, you must help make it.

Write those pieces. Or donate enough money that it matters and lets someone else do it.

And you have to do all of this on top of existing commitments and demands, is really freaking hard.

And this is how well funded campaigns to whip up the loyals against the others, win the day, so they can keep lowering taxes (which is the actual end goal; the rest is just cynical operators.)

@e_urq

I have wondered where the outrage is. I thought I might have not been paying attention and missed news reports of pushback, but I guess I haven't missed what hasn't happened ☹️

@e_urq

HRC's record with trans people has never been good - they were perfectly willing to throw them under the bus back in the 90s - this is just more of the same. And they were one of the groups screaming about Obergfell, saying it was too soon, and we needed to be patient and wait. Then they strutted around like they'd invented Obergfell when the ruling came down in our favor.
I'm not generally impressed by HRC and their commitment to *all* of us.