As PGN goes to press, up to 4,000 people are flooding into Philly to address LGBT equality. The timing couldn’t be more significant, as the nation braces for the inauguration of Donald Trump, whose administration is poised to actively turn the clock back on equality for LGBT people and many other communities.
The National LGBT Task Force’s Creating Change Conference highlights the work that lies ahead. There are frank discussions happening right now at the conference about racial inequality, trans and bi erasure and lack of opportunities for our community’s youth, seniors and other marginalized populations. But with the atrocity happening just 140 miles away in the nation’s capitol on Jan. 20, it may seem hard to focus on anything other than how our country is going to avoid nuclear war if our next president is insulted on Twitter.
But these deep, systemic issues need attention, debate and work. If the last two months have shown us anything, it’s that our nation has a tremendously long way to go until America can truly be a bastion of freedom and equality. We can’t control who sits in the Oval Office at this point, but we can work to root out the ills in both our community and our country — a process that can significantly shape who will helm the nation in another four years.
Change didn’t come easily in the last eight years, during a presidential administration that fully embraced LGBT equality; the tremendous policy, programmatic and public-opinion wins we saw during the Obama administration were the amalgamation of intense legislative pressure, coordinated community campaigns and countless LGBT individuals across the nation who showed their family members, friends and loved ones what it means to be LGBT. The name of this national conference is exactly the spirit that needs to guide the LGBT community’s vision for the next four years: Change isn’t an abstract, intangible concept. It is an active process, one that needs to be nurtured and nourished.
Surviving the next four years isn’t enough. Our community deserves to thrive — and to do that, we need to create change.