Bigger than our acronym: The 19th’s LGBTQ+ reporters reflect on the community’s past, present and future

This Pride Month, we’re telling the untold stories of LGBTQ+ people. Subscribe to our daily newsletter .

This year, as Pride Month starts, I’m feeling hopeful for the future for LGBTQ+ people. That may seem counterintuitive, given that I report on the effects of escalating political rhetoric and violence targeting LGBTQ+ people, and that I cover the court cases that could massively reshape transgender rights in this country. However, there are a lot of bright spots emerging this year.

Many anti-LGBTQ+ bills stalled in statehouses this year. In Southern and Republican-controlled states, legislation to restrict LGBTQ+ rights has repeatedly failed to become law . This is a major change from last year, when 84 such bills became law, per the ACLU . In Kansas, the personal journey of one Republican state representative showed how lawmakers that support bans on gender-affirming care can change their minds, and that state-level LGBTQ+ advocates are making inroads with legislators.

In Florida, where landmark anti-LGBTQ+ policies such as the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law served as blueprints for other states, families of LGBTQ+ youth said this spring that they are hopeful for the first time in a long time . In March, school districts across Florida received written notice from the state that discussions of LGBTQ+ identities are not banned in classrooms. In Colorado, incarcerated trans women won sweeping prison reforms that could be a model for other states. The Supreme Court, following its current trend of declining to get involved in trans rights cases, turned down a challenge brought by Maryland parents against county guidelines that support transgender students.

And overall, most Americans — including most religious Americans — want LGBTQ+ people to be protected from discrimination, according to recent data from the Public Religion Research Institute . But LGBTQ+ people are still living in a volatile political moment, where being out as gay or gender nonconforming puts a target on their back.

Trans people are living in fear in everyday situations, from holding hands in public to going to the bar, according to the left-leaning firm Data for Progress . And although that’s unlikely to change soon, LGBTQ+ people are connected in ways we’ve never been before. In my conversations with trans elders , that’s something they repeatedly bring up: Trans people have a much wider network of support now than in the past. And that’s not going anywhere, regardless of the political environment. — Orion Rummler, LGBTQ+ reporter

Fifteen years ago, I told my mom she couldn’t come to the Chicago Pride Parade. She hadn’t done enough for the LGBTQ+ community, I argued. If she wanted in, she needed to earn it by getting active for the cause.

She spent the next year in PFLAG, a chapter-based organization that advocates for LGBTQ+ families and allied parents. And she went to nearly every parade after.

It would be years before I confessed my real reason for keeping her away — I was on the float for the sex toy store I was secretly working at, and I didn’t want her to spot me rolling through Boystown on a giant fake bed.

Yes, she forgave me. More than that, we both learned something early on that has bonded us tightly: It was never going to be enough to show up one day a year.

I asked my mom to step forward every other day except for Pride. I didn’t realize it at the time, but having her do the work the other 364 days of every year was something I actually did need.

Since that time, my mom has registered thousands of people to vote. She has pushed for gender neutral IDs. She has marched and protested. She has worked at jails on voter access. She has done civic engagement workshops and sat in the heat for hours on end in the name of democracy. She has taken the same senior Spanish class about six times, still trying to learn the language.

And me? I don’t even go to Pride anymore.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the ways that LGBTQ+ people are under attack these days. And in that context, every June means less and less to me. But the other days — the days when my mom is working on trans IDs, voting rights and education — are the days when I have the most pride. I hope she gets to party for all of June. Our community is so much bigger to me now than our acronym. And I know we cannot lose. — Kate Sosin, LGBTQ+ reporter