Equality Federation won’t stop until all LGBTQ+ people are fully empowered and represented in their communities, experiencing full equality in their lives.
Last month, Equality Federation and our partner Campaign for Southern Equality filed an amicus brief calling on the Supreme Court to act quickly to ensure the freedom to marry across the nation.
On Friday April 24th, Bruce Jenner came out about transitioning to womanhood in a special episode of 20/20 with Diane Sawyer. Throughout the interview Jenner remained warm, calm, and honest. Diane was a kind and respectful interviewer.
Equality Federation has joined 63 organizations in calling on Congress to support the Student Non-Discrimination Act in the House and Senate.The Student Non-Discrimination Act (SNDA) would explicitly prohibit public schools from discriminating against any student on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.
A North Carolina "religious exemption" bill that would have permitted discrimination and opened a can of worms of potential unintended consequences was killed today.
So far 2015 has been quite a year. We haven't seen a state-by-state attack on our rights like this since the marriage bans of 2004. There's good news though: we are winning.
Equality Federation’s conferences, convenings, and trainings provide an extraordinary opportunity for member organizations to learn from and support each other.
Equality Federation members scored key municipal policy wins this year. While we often focus on statewide wins, these city and county victories are critical components of the fight for equality in the communities we call home.
In 1997, a few LGBTQ movement leaders, including our current executive director, Rebecca Isaacs, came together at the Highlander Center in Tennessee. Sitting in a circle of rocking chairs in the room where Rosa Parks was trained in civil disobedience, they envisioned coming together as a state-based movement to form the “Federation of Statewide LGBT Political Organizations.” From that loose network, an organization grew.
Equality Federation’s Legislative Action Center tracks every piece of LGBTQ-focused legislation in all 50 states, allowing us to deploy critical resources to our state partners at every step of the legislative process. This year we tracked over 350 bills affecting the LGBTQ community. Fifteen states faced down anti-transgender bathroom ban legislation this year and we were victorious in fighting every one of these discriminatory efforts.
This year was the most successful ever in the fight against so-called “conversion therapy.” Equality Federation supported legislation in 20 states to protect youth from the harmful, unscientific, disproven practice of sexual orientation and gender identity conversion efforts.
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With your support, we'll be able to continue our work to build the leaders of today and tomorrow, strengthen state-based LGBTQ+ organizations, and make critical progress on the issues that matter most—like protecting transgender people, ending HIV criminalization and ensuring access to care, and banning conversion therapy across the country.
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