00:05:43.020And it just kind of snowballed from there.
00:05:45.640I ended up creating an organization called GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network,
00:05:50.260which worked to address anti-queer bias in schools in 1990.
00:05:55.480I ended up becoming its first executive director in 1994.
00:05:58.900I led it for 14 years, and I eventually became Assistant Secretary of Education for President
00:06:03.860Obama, where I led a national campaign to address bullying in schools.
00:06:09.520And I'm proud to say that when President Obama left office in 2016, bullying was at the lowest
00:06:14.900level it had ever been since we had started recording the phenomenon in American schools.
00:06:20.040Wow. So for 30 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?
00:06:40.140and i went to their wedding about 15 years ago and the young woman who wanted to start the gsa
00:06:47.420she's married to a man she has two kids she lives in boston and when i visited her a few years ago
00:06:52.860her lesbian mother babysat the grandkids so everybody has a happy ending to the story
00:06:58.760oh my god that is incredible i mean what has it been like to have had such a foundational role
00:07:06.240in the community's history, like moving it forward?
00:07:09.520Like personally, what's that like for you?
00:07:12.180You know, I would call myself the accidental activist.
00:11:21.900Sure. Lambda Legal's been involved fighting for LGBTQ plus students since we were founded 50 years ago in 1973.
00:11:28.880In fact, one of our very first cases in 1974, we helped win the right of the University of New Hampshire Gay Student Group to meet on campus,
00:11:37.440which really led to the proliferation of queer student clubs on college campuses nationwide.
00:11:41.940In 1996, we went to court on behalf of a young man named Jamie Nabuzny. Jamie was a high school
00:11:48.540student in Ashland, Wisconsin. He was repeatedly beaten up and harassed in school. His family
00:11:53.640complained to the school. The school did nothing. So finally, we took him on and we won the first
00:11:59.180federal lawsuit holding schools accountable for failing to protect LGBTQ plus students from
00:12:05.000bullying and harassment. And in 2000, we represented Anthony Colleen, a student in the Orange County
00:12:11.880Unified School District in Southern California who was told that he could not have a gay-straight
00:12:16.720alliance, a GSA in his school, and we won the federal right of students to have GSAs in their
00:12:22.580schools. So Lambda Legal has been fighting for young people literally from the start. I'm sorry
00:12:27.980to say that we are having to do so again today in 2023. Unfortunately, as they say, people who
00:12:34.980know history are doomed to watch idiots repeat it, and we are indeed seeing that history being1.00
00:12:40.340repeated. We are in court against the don't say gay or trans law in Florida. We will be going to1.00
00:12:46.460court in other states to challenge that law. We're in court in multiple states trying to defend the
00:12:51.180rights of trans youth to get gender-affirming care. The fight to ensure the safety and well-being of
00:12:58.820LGBTQ plus youth is unfortunately not over, even though we've been fighting it for five decades.
00:13:04.340I mean, I, it's one of those things that I wish this, I wish this was, were not fights that you
00:13:11.820all had to take up. I wish that we, you know, when you were first starting these fights,
00:13:17.260when you were younger, like, did you ever think that in 2023, your work would still be
00:13:22.360so important and so relevant? Yes and no. Yes, in that there's a great quote by Coretta Scott
00:13:33.440King, which I really like, she said, freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every
00:13:39.900generation. And I think that's true. I do want to say that things are vastly better
00:13:48.060than they were the year I was born. In 1963, it was illegal to be gay in 49 states.
00:13:56.700I don't want to paint a picture of complete gloom and doom. We have made serious progress.
00:14:03.440But like Mrs. King said, you have to earn it and win it in every generation. Our opponents, I jokingly say, sometimes are like the Terminator. They just keep coming. They never stop. And it was Thomas Jefferson who said the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
00:14:21.200We 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. In 1973, the same year Lambda Legal was founded, the right of people to control their own bodies was granted by the Supreme Court in Roe versus Wade.
00:14:42.000and our opponents fought for 49 years and finally got that right taken away last year.
00:14:47.900So we can never let down our guard because our opponents are determined to impose their values
00:14:54.720on everyone else. And I really think that's what this whole fight is about. It's bigger than
00:15:00.320abortion. It's bigger than gender affirming care. It's bigger than don't say gay. It's about this.
00:15:07.260We theoretically are a country where everyone has the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit
00:15:11.220of happiness. At Lambda Legal, we believe that every person has self-determination, that they
00:15:17.880should decide what to do with their lives, and that so long as they're not hurting anybody else,
00:15:22.040that's up to them. Our opponents fundamentally do not believe that. They believe that they have
00:15:29.460the right to tell other people how to live their lives. You know, there's that great bumper sticker,
00:15:34.720don't like abortion, don't have one. But our opponents think they have the right to tell
00:15:41.820other people how to live their lives, what to do with their bodies, whether it be abortion or
00:15:46.360gender-affirming care, what they can say in schools, whether they can perform in drag or not.
00:15:53.100They believe they have the right to tell people how to live their lives. And at Land Legal,
00:15:57.800we believe that everybody has the right to live their life according to their own values,
00:16:01.660like I said, so long as they're not hurting anybody else. And that's the fundamental fight
00:16:06.720we're in in America right now is, is there really going to be life, liberty, and the pursuit of
00:16:12.260happiness for every individual in America? Or as sadly has been the case throughout our history,
00:16:18.380is it only going to be some people that get it? You know, though some people have traditionally
00:16:22.440been white, they've been male, they've been Christian, they've been able-bodied, they've
00:16:26.340been cisgendered, they've been heterosexual. Those are the people who get to choose how to
00:16:30.540their lives and everybody else is in various ways been restricted throughout American history.
00:16:36.520We're going to keep fighting until there's no restrictions. That's what we're here to do.
00:16:40.320I'm so glad that you put it that way. And I think it can be kind of
00:16:44.480tough to step back and see the forest for the trees a little bit because, you know, it's not
00:16:51.360about one piece of legislation or one book that was banned or what, like it is, I believe,
00:16:57.820fundamentally about whether people can live their lives the way that they want to and it but it
00:17:03.340sometimes it feels like that value is under attack from so many different ways so many different
00:17:09.820pressure points whether it's reproductive care or gender affirming care or the ability to read
00:17:14.620what you want to perform in drag how do we how how do we like stay in the fight with that
00:17:21.660understanding that even though we might be fighting for you know to fight one piece of legislation
00:17:26.540today, it's really about a broader attack on our rights and equality.
00:17:32.540You know, it's interesting. The term intersectionality gets thrown around a lot
00:17:36.580nowadays. But I really think we need to understand that all these fights are truly intersectional.
00:17:42.800When I was a kid, there used to be an ad campaign for Lay's potato chips. And they used to say,
00:17:47.060bet you can't stop with just one. Bigots don't stop with just one group. They come after BIPOC
00:17:53.780people. They come after women. They come after LGBTQ plus people. You know, they're trying to1.00
00:18:01.380restrict the rights of many groups in society because they fundamentally think they have the
00:18:07.400right to tell us how to live our lives. And we need to unite and recognize that all these fights
00:18:13.800are connected. There's no such thing as a single issue human being. All of us are complex people
00:18:20.600with multiple identities, and we need to build a movement that recognizes that all these issues
00:18:28.240are connected, and we need to stand locked arm in arm to prevent this assault, which is really
00:18:34.820fundamentally about taking away people's rights to live their lives as they see fit.
00:29:30.380I agree with Kevin that most Americans would probably agree that nobody should be told how to live their lives.
00:29:36.840But add in a media and digital ecosystem that is invested in turning up the temperature on these conversations and amplifying and incentivizing the worst actors.
00:29:46.260And it certainly doesn't always feel that way.
00:29:49.540That's such a positive, like, forward-looking, affirming perspective.
00:29:55.160And I do think this is why the other side, like, I think that they are really good 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.
00:30:05.540And then turning the temperature up on the conversation, you know, pushing at those tension
00:30:11.460points and those fractures and those things that they know are going to get people kind
00:30:15.200of like riled up or to have a big reaction when like, it's just, we don't really, I don't
00:30:21.100think that we have a, it's difficult to have these conversations when so often they are
00:30:27.920happening along these like existing tension points and pressure points that really inflame
00:30:33.860Well, 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.
00:30:53.320and the reason it's going to backfire is I wrote a textbook on LGBTQ plus history 30 years ago for0.80
00:30:59.980high school students and I said there's two laws of LGBTQ plus history number one the more visible
00:31:06.000we are the more we get attacked and number two the more we are attacked the more people come out
00:31:11.120and fight back as America as more and more trans people are coming out and parents of trans people
00:31:19.940are speaking up and family of trans people are speaking up, more and more Americans are coming
00:31:24.800to know trans people. And in the end, that's why we're going to win. Because the number one most
00:31:30.940effective way to reduce bigotry towards LGBTQ plus people has been shown over and over and over again
00:31:36.280is if you actually know an LGBTQ plus person personally. And the number of people who say
00:31:44.860they don't know a trans person is going to keep dropping. And the more people realize that trans
00:31:52.840people are their neighbors and their family members and their coworkers and are human beings
00:31:58.140like everyone else, these attacks will resonate less and less and less. So what I'm thinking right
00:32:05.900now is we just need to hold the line. We need to hold the line because the next generation is going0.97
00:32:12.840to be very different. The Gallup organization found last year that one in five Generation Z
00:32:18.440members identifies as LGBTQ+. One in five. This generation is not going to have this nonsense.
00:32:27.240So it's up to folks in my generation to hold the line basically until the next generation
00:32:34.200comes in to the rescue. And I really believe that's what's going to happen. So I think what
00:32:39.540they're doing short term may be very effective. I mean, let's be honest, they've passed laws in
00:32:44.660over 20 states this year. It's been bad. Lambda Legal's role is the community's last line of
00:32:50.660defense. We can't stop them from passing these laws in places like North Carolina, where I grew
00:32:55.360up. We don't have the votes, but we can get them struck down in court. And that's what we do every
00:33:00.060day. And if we can hold the line until the next generation assumes the leadership of this country,
00:33:08.500I think we're going to win. How do you see all of these issues playing out in the upcoming
00:33:14.380election? Oh, boy. Well, I talk to a lot of folks who are younger or for a variety of reasons have
00:33:22.820been disenfranchised throughout history, and they say, my vote doesn't matter. And I'll say to them,
00:33:27.740you know what the best evidence is that your vote matters? The Republicans are trying to take it
00:33:33.120away from you. If your vote didn't matter, why would they be trying so hard to stop you from
00:33:40.100voting? So I absolutely think, because remember, if you add up the so-called minorities in America,1.00
00:33:48.660BIPOC folks, women, LGBTQ plus people, and obviously there's people who are all of those
00:33:53.160things, we're the majority. So we have to educate and mobilize the people who agree with us.
00:34:22.820First of all, communities is very complicated.
00:34:24.860There's many, many, many different communities.
00:34:26.540So that's a very complicated question.
00:34:29.200But I guess my dream, I'll speak specifically about LGBTQ plus people.
00:34:37.520I would like to dream that someday a same-sex 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.0.96
00:37:00.540a community where we each love each other.
00:37:05.760And I'll never forget him saying that to me.
00:37:10.120And I think that, in the end, is what we need to realize.0.96
00:37:13.400What 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.0.92
00:39:01.400Did you know that the average school board election turnout is only 15%?
00:39:06.020That means that if you can get 8% of the voters in your community to vote for you, because that's a majority of 15%, or approximately one out of every 13 people, you get to run the schools in your community.
00:39:18.940So vote every time, not just in the presidentials.