Advocacy Lessons for November and Beyond
I was asked recently for my advice for LGBTQ+ advocates—as well as potential new government appointees—approaching the changes we could see next year in the White House, Congress, and state legislatures. Here, in a nutshell, is that advice, which of course is indebted to many conversations with many, many colleagues over the years. I’ve geared it to LGBTQ+ advocates because that’s where most of my work has focused, but I think much of it applies more broadly.
I’ve written out thirteen specific points below, but most of them come back to one big takeaway:
Be proactive, not reactive. A proactive approach will produce bigger dividends and it's what our communities are demanding. Don’t focus on a list of Trump Administration rollbacks (or other bad outcomes like court rulings) to reverse, or Obama-era policies to “restore.” Don’t focus only on how government will respond when someone has been a victim of discrimination or violence. Press instead for what LGBTQ+ people need today, what can be done to advance the ball now and build for the future.
Being proactive means, first, a couple of big things with regard to November:
Be prepared for Trump to win. We know it can happen, and a second term will be worse in many ways. What will your organization do? Shift resources away from federal policy and lobbying and toward impact litigation, transparency work, direct legal aid or other kinds of aid, grassroots resistance, state and local policy, leadership development and movement building, or electoral work? Invest in greater capacity to mobilize supporters into the streets and to flood Congress and federal agencies with letters and calls? Work across movements to zero in on a handful of broad, cross-movement defensive priorities for federal lobbying or policy?
Be prepared for Trump to reject the election results. Moreover, be prepared for a crisis that may not blow over in a matter of days but might escalate in ways that most of us find difficult to imagine. What will your organization do in this scenario? “Nothing, it’s not our role” is not a responsible answer. Are you prepared to call your supporters into the streets? Are you prepared for your organization to give funds you might otherwise use for policy or lobbying work to groups organizing protests, legal work, and the other urgent needs of fending off an imminent and existential threat to democracy?
Those are big questions, so sit with them for awhile. I’ll wait.
Take your time.
It can be hard to hold all these possible scenarios in our minds, and really prepare ourselves for them.
Okay, now that we’ve faced the extraordinary dangers just ahead of us, let’s think about some key principles that will serve us well in the years to come no matter what happens in November—as well as a few that could be particularly important in a Biden Administration.
"LGBTQ+ issues" should be defined the way other marginalized community's concerns are: by their impact, not whether they’re “LGBTQ+ specific.” Think of how different—and how impoverished—the agendas of women’s rights and racial justice groups would be today if they only worked on laws, policies, and programs that specifically mentioned race or gender. Policies with disproportionate benefits or harms for LGBTQ+ communities should be considered every bit as central as LGBTQ+ specific policies. The approach of a group like True Colors United may be a good example: based on the actual impacts on LGBTQ+ homeless youth, TCU devotes equal effort to both securing funding and implementation of programs that will disproportionately benefit this population, and for programs specifically targeted to this population.
Investments and policies to affirmatively further health, jobs, and housing for LGBTQ+ people should receive equal or greater priority than civil rights enforcement. We already know from both the experience of both LGBTQ+ populations and other marginalized populations that civil rights enforcement, while foundational for social justice, tend to have only limited impacts on deeply established economic and health disparities. While expanding and preserving civil rights protections remains very important post-Bostock, it should not take precedence over more proactive interventions.
Violence prevention—including addressing root causes—and victim services for LGBTQ+ people should take precedence over police response and prosecutions. In June 2020 over 350 LGBTQ+ organizations made a joint statement calling for “divestment of police resources and reinvestment in communities, and for long-term transformational change.” Taking this commitment seriously will mean major changes in how many LGBTQ+ groups have historically approached issues such as violence against trans women of color, hate crimes, policing, and domestic and intimate partner violence.
Take every opportunity to work toward eliminating a problem rather than simply ameliorating it. For example, improving gender marker change procedures is good; eliminating gender markers on documents where they're not necessary is much better. To choose another, very different example: strengthening oversight and accountability for prisons and immigration detention are good; keeping and getting people out of prisons and detention centers is much, much better.
Consistently include an LGBTQ+ lens in all equity efforts, and a broader equity lens in all LGBTQ+ efforts. From jobs and small business support to public safety reform to school re-opening plans, whenever racial equity is on the table, gender and LGBTQ+ equity should be too—and vice versa. And the more LGBTQ+ advocates take a proactive approach, the more it will be pretty much impossible to do the work without an intersection lens. This requires both integrating that lens into LGBTQ+ organizational and movement cultures and expanding and deepening strategy conversations across movements.
Find creative ways to use agencies’ existing authorities and discretionary funding to make change. Early on, advocates were often told that their recommendations would require action by Congress—amending civil rights statutes, or earmarking funds for LGBTQ+ equity efforts. Over time, agencies realized that while new reforms and investments from Congress were sorely needed, there were many ways they should use their existing discretionary funds, enforcement powers, and authorities over federal programs to establish important new programs and protections.
Direction and coordination from the White House matter. Done wrong or not done at all they can hinder progress; done right they can supercharge it. Absent coordination on issues that crop up across government in similar ways, agencies will often be reluctant to take action, let alone bold action. Compare, e.g., the impact of early direction and coordination on federal benefits for same-sex couples in the Obama Administration with the slow, piecemeal, uncoordinated progress on gender markers.
Lock in progress through legislation or regulations where possible. While there are always trade-offs involved and sometimes pushing for agency guidance (which can happen quicker and be more detailed) makes sense, we’ve seen many examples in recent years of how quickly it can be reversed. Legislation and regulations take a lot of time, effort, and political capital. Importantly, this includes watching for opportunities to fold key protections or investments for LGBTQ+ equity into larger initiatives.
Work with Congress to find both small and large ways to advance the ball. Flagship bills like the Equality Act, LGBT Data Inclusion Act, and GLOBE Act are critical, but over time folks found ways to achieve modest but important advances through modest provisions in major vehicles—and doubtless overlooked many other opportunities. The 2013 Violence Against Woman Act reauthorization is the most obvious and hard-fought example. The 2015 Runaway and Homeless Youth Act reauthorization could have been another had it not failed in the Senate. Funding increases for civil rights offices made a difference where they were won—and where they weren’t. The Older Americans Act reauthorization in 2019 was also a useful example, as it used low-key language to include LGBTQ+ equity in several key provisions. Many opportunities to include LGBTQ+ equity in legislative and funding provisions related to racial and gender equity were passed over due to a lack of focus from both the White House, Congress, and advocates.
Prepare for opportunities in 2021 in COVID-19 and economic recovery legislation. Done right, COVID-19 relief and economic recovery (including infrastructure and clean energy) legislation in early 2021 should present key opportunities to make truly historic investments in ending homelessness, advancing health, education, and workplace equity, and reducing criminalization and incarceration. LGBTQ+ advocates should be thinking hard and strategizing across movements to press for key priorities that could shape federal and state programs, funding levels, and authorities for many years to come. While regulations can take a year or more to promulgate, these opportunities could come and go within the first weeks of the 117th Congress, so 2021 planning has got to put Congress on the front burner along with the Executive branch.
Prepare for new opportunities and better collaborations in the states. November will also bring major changes in some state legislatures. This means potentially many new opportunities to develop and advance proactive approaches, cross-movement collaborations, and make hugely important progress in red and purple states. Yes, on broad nondiscrimination bills and conversion therapy bans, but also on ID documents, name changes, prisoner rights, sex worker rights, ending cash bail, and investments in health, housing, and jobs programs, among other issues. Many states have tenacious and accomplished trans and queer activists without adequate resources to press their goals at the statehouse alone. National LGBTQ+ orgs sometimes struggle to support and advance state and local work in ways that don’t step on toes or duplicate efforts and that actually help build state and local capacity and political support for the long term. Now is the time to finally figure it out.
What do you think are the most critical lessons or guiding principles for LGBTQ+ and other social justice advocates—especially those of us who do public policy work—for what lies beyond November 3rd?
For this post I’m indebted to many conversations in recent weeks and recent years with more colleagues than I can name, including colleagues in the LGBTQ & HIV Criminal Justice Working Group and the National LGBTQ Institute on IPV and its predecessor National LGBTQ DV Capacity Building Learning Center. It was also informed by cross-movement agenda-setting efforts such as the Vision for Black Lives, the BREATHE Act, and the Survivors’ Agenda.