Lambda Legal’s new LGBTQ+ Bill of Rights goes on offense by using tactics perfected by the right

For years, LGBTQ+ advocates have been asked to defend what their movement already won. Lambda Legal now wants to ask a different question: What should equality look like next? The civil rights organization is rolling out a new LGBTQ+ Bill of Rights this October, pairing its courtroom challenges to President Donald Trump’s administration with an expanded campaign to secure state-level protections.

In an exclusive interview with The Advocate, CEO Kevin Jennings and Cathryn Oakley, Lambda Legal’s deputy legal director of policy, described a strategy shaped by the increasingly difficult path through federal courts and the opportunities that remain beyond them.

“People know us for our litigation, and of course we’re going to continue to do litigation, but we are tired of playing defense, and we are going to be going on offense,” Jennings said.

The campaign, timed to LGBTQ+ History Month, is part of the organization’s five-year strategic plan, “Rising Together.” October will bring educational materials, videos, personal stories, and legal resources.

The framework identifies five priorities, including health, education, opportunity, family, and democracy. Together, they envision affordable, culturally competent healthcare for LGBTQ+ people and everyone living with HIV; schools that help every student flourish; access to economic and social opportunity; belonging for LGBTQ+ families; and a government that represents them.

Related: The closet was once the law. Without an LGBTQ+ Bill of Rights, it could be again

Taking the fight to the states

Jennings said Lambda Legal would start with 20 states whose leaders support LGBTQ+ equality, developing model laws and policies that could spread elsewhere. The marriage equality movement, he noted, built momentum state by state.

“We have done this before. We can do it again,” he said.

The strategy also borrows from opponents who have circulated similar restrictions across state legislatures.

“Well, you know what? Two can play at that game,” Jennings said.

Oakley said state legislatures and agencies will be essential as courts become increasingly difficult places for LGBTQ+ people to find justice.

“What I’m really excited about with this Bill of Rights is that it’s giving us a roadmap to increase the work that we are doing in a policy space around the country and to start charting a path forward toward the realization of this Bill of Rights,” she said.

Lambda Legal says the campaign complements nine lawsuits against the Trump administration.

Jennings pointed to PFLAG v. Trump. As The Advocate previously reported, a federal judge refused to suspend an injunction blocking the administration from restricting providers’ funding based on their provision of gender-affirming care to patients younger than 19.

Related: Democrats introduce bill to protect jurors from anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination

A future worth fighting for

The work also requires reaching people outside legislatures and courtrooms.

Jennings highlighted “Letters of Love,” Lambda Legal’s Mother’s Day campaign featuring transgender young people and their parents. The Advocate interviewed Sonu and his parents about an installment centered on the teenager’s letter thanking his mother for supporting him.

“What they saw in the ad was another parent who was fighting for their kid, and they could relate to that,” Jennings said.

The new agenda takes inspiration from the “Homosexual Bill of Rights” adopted by movement predecessors in 1968. Jennings, a former history teacher, sees their willingness to demand seemingly unattainable freedoms as instructive.

Asked what success would mean in everyday life, he returned to belonging.

“I am not interested in an America where our presence is tolerated,” he said. “I want LGBTQ+ people to be loved, to be valued, to be celebrated for the human beings that they are.”