Civil Rights Agenda

TCRA is an organization that works tirelessly to achieve its’ goals of maintaining and advancing individual rights for LGBTQ citizens in Illinois.  We are a community leader in many different areas of activism, and our projects are achieving real, tangible results.

The below projects and TCRA’s ongoing work to secure and advance the rights of the LGBT community are only made possible by supporters like you!  With your help, we can continue to change lives, attitudes, and the law, ensuring a brighter future for all LGBT citizens in Illinois.

 

The Fight for Marriage

Last year we were a leader in ensuring the passage of marriage equality in Illinois. The strategy we put in place focused on grassroots organizing, strategic, targeted political work and clear messaging, and that strategy was successful.  While the LGBT community may have achieved a huge victory in getting equal marriage passed in Illinois, the fight is not over yet.  After Illinois approved civil unions in 2011, there were legislative attacks on those unions in Springfield.  Inevitably, there will be similar attacks levied against marriage equality in the coming years and we must be there as a community to defend the hard-won right to marriage.

 

Youth Mentorship

Our Mentorship Project aids high school LGBTQ youth directly by connecting them with LGBTQ adults with the goal of creating a safe, inclusive space within high schools for students to engage with others, express their gender identity and sexual orientation, and discuss issues relevant to their high school community and their personal identity.  The project helps these students through the emotional and social minefield that is high school by giving them a place to be heard, to get advice, or to share experiences with others.  

 

Conversion Therapy

Another facet of our commitment to serve the needs of LGBT youth in Illinois is protecting them from harm resulting from therapies known to have detrimental effects, especially conversion therapy.  We are in the process of forming a coalition of activists, organizations, and mental health professionals in support of a bill banning conversion therapy practices and programs in the interest of stopping the harm effected on LGBT youth in Illinois.

 

Transgender Rights

Our Transgender Rights Project is a pioneering effort to advocate for and educate on issues that affect transgender individuals and communities throughout Illinois.  The Project is guided by a 15-member Advisory Committee, composed of transgender rights activists that guides the Project’s work. The Project focuses on influencing public policy to advance and secure civil and human rights for transgender citizens across a variety of areas and issues that affect the transgender community.  Through the Project we provide resources to victims of discrimination, as well as partner with allied community members and organizations to educate and advance policy that recognizes and respects the rights of transgender people.  

 

Workplace Discrimination

Our Workplace Project supports and defends individuals who have faced discrimination and/or unfair treatment in the workplace due to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.  TCRA maintains a network of lawyers with civil rights experience and/or lawyers that have been specially trained on workplace LGBT discrimination/harassment by our attorneys.  Attorneys in our network take on these cases for very little or no cost.  While the outcomes of these cases varies, we work with network lawyers to ensure they request both damages and mandatory company-wide diversity training.  TCRA is in the process of training all 10,000 CTA employees on serving and supporting the LGBT community in the workplace as a direct result of one of these cases.  

 

The Power of the Vote

Part of successfully influencing public policy in favor of equality is mobilizing public support and commitment through voting.  That’s why TCRA continues to educate and mobilize grassroots, community, and voter support for our public policy goals and initiatives through our Voter Project.  This project is even more crucial this coming election season as multiple pro-equality legislators are under attack for voting to ensure equal rights for every Illinoisan.  Anti-equality organizations are flooding these legislators’ districts with resources in an attempt to replace them.  This is part of why we are so dedicated to the education and mobilization of the voting public on each candidate’s positions on issues of equality.