Giving Tuesday 2020

This Giving Tuesday, I’m raising money for MassEquality, the leading LGBTQ grassroots advocacy organization in Massachusetts. Will you join me and help power the fight at the very frontiers of the movement for LGBTQ equality? Thanks to support from community members and allies like you, MassEquality has been able to rise to the challenges of the past year and remain at the forefront of the struggle for equal rights. While our past activism helped build MA’s reputation as a national leader on LGBTQ issues, too many members of our community still slip through the cracks. But with your help, we can build a future where the dream of equality is a reality for all members of the LGBTQ community, regardless of race, gender identity, socioeconomic status, or any other characteristic.

This year, we inaugurated a bold new initiative to ensure that equality in Massachusetts truly extends to all corners of the Commonwealth. We brought on new leadership who hail from diverse communities throughout MA, from a new executive director from Western Mass to our board itself. We understand that real change starts at the local level with those who understand the problem, so we’ve dedicated ourselves to building authentic connections with community groups from across MA and used our organization’s connections to empower longstanding community activists. Your assistance will enable us to continue fighting to ensure that equality extends from the Berkshires to Bourne, Plymouth to Pittsfield, and everywhere in between.

Additionally, we have been a leading voice in addressing the issues of the moment, from the pandemic to police brutality. We have been a leading voice in drawing attention to the inequitable way that COVID-19 has impacted our community, even carrying out our own community needs assessment when officials didn’t act fast enough. We’ve also pioneered new strategies to ensure our work remains accessible to all. This past spring saw our first wholly online Pride Month, which featured events ranging from an LGBTQ history book talk to a panel with trans prisoners discussing legislation to address the LGBTQ rights violations in our state’s prisons. We leveraged the power of our increased online presence to coordinate activists across MA in fighting back against the Trump administration’s attempts to undermine protections for trans individuals in homeless shelters. Just this October, we led an online lobby day in which dozens of parents, students, educators, and activists called on their representatives to support our bill for LGBTQ-inclusive, medically accurate sex education. We also participated in statewide efforts to draw attention to police violence here in MA, joined a national coalition of LGBTQ organizations condemning police brutality and the civil rights violations so many Black Americans experience, and cosponsored a Trans Resistance Vigil and March in June.

At the same time, we have tirelessly worked to advance our policy agenda both at the statehouse and in local governments throughout MA. Just last year, we helped ensure that no more LGBTQ youth in Massachusetts can be subjected to the traumatizing psychological violence of conversion therapy by banning the practice in our state. We continue to advocate for bills on issues that are key for our community, such as guaranteeing that our youth receive LGBTQ-inclusive, medically-accurate information in sex education courses and ensuring that same-sex parents and their children don’t have to engage in inequitable, arduous, expensive legal processes to have their families recognized and respected.

Over the last four years, we have been a critical bulwark against the Trump administration’s efforts to erode advances in LGBTQ rights by protecting our rights at the state level. At the same time, we have boldly pushed forward to forge new victories at the cutting edge of the movement for LGBTQ equality. We refused to accept the idea that an unfavorable administration meant that all we could do was shore up basic protections at the state level and instead led the way in exploring bold new ideas like recognizing nonbinary genders on state IDs and expanding healthcare access for HIV+ individuals. Our work has been crucial to mitigating the damage of the last four years in our state – and to providing a roadmap for other states, as our movement tries to move forward nationally.

As we continue our work in these uncertain times, we turn to you for help. We need your support to ensure we can commit our resources to all the programming described above. From lobbying legislators to pass bills on issues like conversion therapy, to advocating for our community members who are vulnerable to police brutality and disease, to expanding our reach across Massachusetts so that equality isn’t limited by geography, we can’t do it without you. Please join me this Giving Tuesday and support MassEquality.