 Good morning, everyone. Welcome, welcome to our LGBTQIA plus week event this morning, queer politics post marriage quality. My name is Kent and Westerfield my pronouns are they them and theirs. And I am one of our entry advisors here at Highline and a member of our LGBTQIA plus week planning committee. And now I will pass the mic over to Doris Martinez for a land and labor acknowledgement. Thank you very much. My name is Doris Martinez your pronouns and service director for Center for cultural inclusive excellence and part of the LGBTQIA plus week committee. Today, we take a moment to acknowledge all indigenous and first people of the land and space in which we live and breathe. For our community at Highline College, we recognize that we are on stolen occupied the Womish Coast Salish muckleshoe and Puyallup lands, and we want to think all relations and tribes today, as we prepare to hold space as a community. We recognize that all of us are joining this conversations from different locations through zoom. And so, let us also acknowledge the indigenous and first peoples of the land and spaces in which you currently occupy. Earlier we respectfully acknowledged the enslaved people, primarily of African descent, who provided an exploited labor on which this country was built with little to no recognition. Today, we are indebted to their labor and the labor of many black and brown bodies that continue to work in the shadows of our collective benefit. And now I will pass it back to Kenton who will introduce today's feature presenter. Yeah, thank you so much Doris for grounding us this morning. I now have the honor of introducing our presenter for today's session fear politics post marriage equality. As a lifelong Washingtonian Marco was born and raised in the communities he has represented in the legislature since 2008. He was the master's in public administration from the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington. In 2008 Marco was appointed to the House of Representatives where he won reelection three times. In 2014 he was appointed to the Senate, where he's currently serving his third term as senator. Throughout his service in the legislature, Senator leis has focused on policies to build an economy that works for everyone and to create strong pathways to an opportunity while ensuring a focus on equity and social justice for all Washingtonians. Senator leis held the. Sorry, Senator leis led the effort to protect LGBTQ youth in Washington by banning so called conversion therapy. He is also focused on tackling the student debt crisis, passing multiple bills including the student loan bill of rights, a refinancing college debt, and a new low interest student loan program for undocumented students and dreamers. In addition to his service in the legislature, Marco is a college professor teaching courses in American government. Please join me in welcoming Senator leis to our virtual stage. Thank you so much Kent and it's so wonderful to be with you all, and such a delight to be part of Highline's LGBTQIA plus week. To contribute some of my thoughts but also to just be with you in this wonderful community space so thank you so much for the invitation and such a delight to be with you. I want to talk a little bit about sort of the arc of history that we're on. There's Dr King has the famous line that the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice, and when it comes to queer politics when it comes to the face of LGBTQIA plus people in our country. We are definitely on that arc from a place of marginalization discrimination legal harassment to today. In more and more parts of the country, achieving recognition and legal protection and in 2015 the right to the fundamental right to marry as guaranteed under the Constitution. And also, and we can advance to the next slide I want to talk about what brought us to that 2015 decision and then what does the world look like in the aftermath of the 2015 decision using that sort of as our marker. A lot of folks engaged in queer politics, their goal was to achieve marriage equality they believed that that would mark our full participation as queer people in this society. What we know is that there's still more work to do. And we know that, in particular, for white cis gay men, the marriage equality decision and this movement towards gay rights have really achieved basic acceptance in our society. But that acceptance and that participation does not extend to all corners of the LGBTQIA community and so, as we think about the accomplishment we should celebrate, but also recognize that there's still so much work to do we see a rise in anti trans violence and rhetoric. We see continuing efforts to harass queer people across this country. I also want to take a look back into history I think part of understanding where we are today part of understanding where we've come to requires us to sort of look back and see where we've come from so let's advance to the next slide. The origins, if you read the sort of dominant storyline of the LGBTQ movement they will talk about the Stonewall in riots in 1969 as the first time that the movement for what was called gay rights at the time, really burst onto the public landscape and coverage but 1969 wasn't the beginning. We know that there were protests earlier in our history, public protests for example at Cooper Donuts in Los Angeles in 1959 or Compton's cafeteria in San Francisco in 1966 notable examples of queer people ending up for fair treatment and for their rights but the Stonewall in riots were the first ones that got covered on the nightly news and in our newspapers for a sustained period of time. And what brought us to 1969 to those Stonewall in riots we have to go back a little bit further in our history. To the decades before that to find the legal harassment of LGBTQ plus people rising in its intensity. The state of New York had passed an anti masquerade law in the 1800s because there were people that were masquerading and committing crimes while in disguise and so that's the state of New York passed a law against wearing a disguise to hide your crime that law was used in the 20th century to harass LGBTQ plus people in particular used to harass trans people and to harass lesbian women who were wearing what was described at the time, men's clothing there was what was famously in the LGBTQ community called the three article rule. You would be wearing three articles of clothing that the police believed aligned with your, your gender at birth, or you would be breaking the law and so we would see police, not just in New York but around the country, are resting people because they weren't proper clothing they were masquerading. In addition, in the city of New York, there was a significant organized crime presence that had aligned with elements of the police department in ways that would benefit both organizations so the organized crime entities would operate what were technically illegal bars and illegal clubs under the protection of the New York police and one part of that community was the LGBTQ community so gay bars, many of them operated by organized crime elements, who had protection agreements with the New York City police and as a result, the police would come through periodically and sweep those establishments, giving notice to the owners of the bar so they could warn their patrons when those sweeps would be coming so we could maintain the appearance politically that the police were targeting bad actors but they were in league with organized crime elements and giving warning well in 1969 the Stonewall in was a gay bar in lower Manhattan, and was one of these establishments that had a protection with the police department and had been sweeped already a couple of times in June of 1969 and on June 28, the police raided the bar again, and the folks there were quite frankly just really angry they'd been rated, I think two or three days earlier and they were fed up with this treatment by the police. And in particular, this bar had that night had a strong and feisty group of trans women who were just fed up with their treatment, Marsha P Johnson and others. They were passed outside of the bar as the police were raiding it trapped some of the officers inside the Stonewall in, and what erupted was this riot between a huge crowd of LGBTQI people, and the police that were harassing them. It started that night it lasted for several hours on June 28, and then it continued for the next couple days with LGBTQI plus people putting their bodies in the way of the police and the police brutality refusing to accept this treatment anymore this spread to other cities in particular. There were other cities that joined into these protests and this launched the national coverage and attention of the LGBTQ movement and the movement for gay rights, we can move forward to the next slide. The Stonewall Rebellion, two of these leaders of this group of really powerful trans women in Manhattan, lower Manhattan came together and became the founders of what they called the Gay Liberation Front, focused on being out and proud Marsha P Johnson and Olivia Rivera both were trans women, both were marginalized by their family and their community, forced to leave their homes, lived unhoused and unsheltered for periods of time, both were exploited and forced to engage in human trafficking. Both, unfortunately, weren't able to see full and long lives because of the marginalization and the impacts that it had on their lives and their health but in 1972. Came together with a broader group and formed the Gay Activist Alliance that was focused on legal rights and there was sort of this tension already at the time between lesbian and gay men and at that time transsexual was the phrase transgender and the concepts of gender were still the community was still defining themselves and so there was this separation of gender identity and sexual orientation that was beginning to emerge. But it's just important and I encourage each of you as you sort of follow up to learn a little bit more about Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera if you haven't read about them before. There's some wonderful podcasts with interviews with them you can hear their voices in real time, and some amazing documentaries and others that cover them because they're incredible leaders. And when we think about the Stonewall in and the Stonewall rebellion. Today, we see a lot of white male faces on the photos and the memories of that. I want to just center us in a reminder that Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera really were two of the seminal leaders at that time and it's important to center them as well. So this movement forms to articulate and advocate for what they're calling gay liberation at that point in time, gay liberation is an inclusive term that incorporates a broad set of people that the specific terms for lesbian and transgender haven't yet emerged the movement is so new that gay liberation speaks to the liberation of everyone who is outside of the social norm outside of that binary as we move forward we get to see more self definition by communities but at this time in the early 70s gay liberation is a broad umbrella term we can move to the next slide. And it's focused on both social change and then rejecting the dominant heteronormative culture and this is, these are some of the quotes you can see from this time these are from pamphlets like the gay manifesto which was written in that period. Quotes like free ourselves come out everywhere initiate self defense and political activity initiate counter community institutions free the homosexual in everyone will be getting a good bit of shift from threatened latents be gentle and keep talking and acting free so the idea is to awaken the community that existed to give them a space to advocate for themselves to advocate for their power and to make it socially acceptable to be out to be a gay person, while also advocating for fair treatment under the law this is sort of the first of activism after the Stonewall riots of the community begins to assert itself to identify openly as gay to advocate for this agenda in a way that had not existed before there had been small private secret groups that had formed to advocate. But there hadn't been this public awareness and there was an early tension between those folks who'd been part of those quiet efforts, and folks like Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera who were tired of doing it slowly and quietly wanted to do it out and proud and loud and this is the burst burst of this under the national consciousness we can advance to the next slide. So, as we move from gay liberation, we begin to talk about gay rights and again in those early days and late 70s, even into the early 80s, gay rights is also an umbrella term that's speaking to the experiences of people throughout the LGBTQIA plus race. Today, and as we imagine it looking back, we know that gay rights was focused on legal protection and recognition from political institutions. At that time it was also about just the right to be queer the right to be out the right to be who we are and live in our society openly and proudly. Those early activists argued that gay marriage was sort of the barrier that if we could tear down that barrier of gay marriage of marriage equality that that would mean so many other protections and it's, in fact, a good point if you look in state law there are hundreds and hundreds of privileges that attach to the right to marry some very concrete like visiting your spouse in the hospital if they're ill or taking care of their affairs if they're not able to to start starting a family also small rights like the right to get discounts on certain things from state government and other public institutions so marriage is important it's one of those institutions that's been layered with other privileges and so these early activists really focused on that as one of the big milestones to achieving representation and protection for LGBTQIA people. In addition, there were basic laws on the books at that time that banned same sex conduct they were called anti sodomy laws the idea these coming from English law from the Middle Ages so our bear sort of included in the legal process when our country was founded, literally making it illegal to engage in same sex conduct with our partners in our private spaces. These laws started to become repealed in the 1960s after the Stonewall riots, that movement takes even more front and focus and so we begin to see states repealing anti sodomy laws in the 1970s our state of Washington did not repeal the states prohibition on same sex conduct until 1976 so until 1976 it was technically illegal to engage in in same sex conduct to to express your love for your partner that was illegal under state law but it was repealed in the 1970s so we begin to see this movement taking foot, advancing this identity speaking out continuing to protest and seeing changes in laws with these anti sodomy laws being repealed with anti discrimination laws passed in a couple of cities and this movement continuing to make progress. So, inevitably as we've seen throughout civil rights movements in this country and we can move to the next slide. There is a backlash to this progress for the LGBTQ community and we've seen this throughout our history where civil rights movements make progress and there is a push back and when you look at the movements for for against slavery or the movements for women suffrage there is a push and pull where progress is achieved and then the sort of conservative elements that I don't have in a political party sense but conservative elements that don't want society to change, pushing back against that change so that happens. In this case as well 1977 famous campaign led by a sort of minor celebrity Anita Bryant. She starts to save our children campaign to argue that the LGBTQ plus movement is is really going to have a negative impact on children that sort of perpetuating old stereotypes that LGBTQ people are more likely to commit crimes against children. This idea that gay men are pedophiles building on old stereotypes and outdated conceptions of LGBTQ people and scaring the general public. So this push and pull begins some states, some areas are advancing LGBTQ equality, and now Anita Bryant is leading this campaign against and so in other states, you see some of this early progress being pushed back and some cities that had passed anti discrimination ordinances, then Anita Bryant's team, forcing a vote on that and the public in those cities rejecting that anti discrimination measure famously happening in some cities in Florida in Seattle, the measure ended up on the ballot and narrowly was sustained by Seattle voters but there's this battle taking place around these protections that exist at the time. And also we see hate crimes against LGBTQI people. And you know that had happened at a small scale in micro communities around the country, as long as LGBTQ people have existed we know that there's been identity based violence against them but with this organized campaign normalizing we're going to see really a rise and an ability to document this this hate based violence. The most public of course of this identity based violence with a culminating in the assassination of one of the, the most prominent LGBTQ elected persons in the country, a San Francisco City Commissioner Harvey milk in 1978. So, we've made a lot of progress in the 70s. And then now there's this pushback from Anita Bryant, the state of our children, and this religious religiously inspired movement pushing back. We can advance to the next slide. In addition to the, the organized opposition of the religious community. We see a public health crisis emerge at the same time which is the AIDS crisis, and the AIDS crisis would really lead to negative impacts on the, particularly gay men gay and bisexual men in this country, because of the way that the HIV virus was disproportionately impacting that community, and it led to stigmatization on top of it, because of the way that HIV emerged at first in the public consciousness in July of 1981 as a mysterious cancer that was impacting gay men and as the researchers dealt into it, they were able to identify that these rare cancers were actually a result of AIDS because of the impact it was having on gay men's immune systems they were at these rare cancers were emerging but it took time for science to catch up to what was happening. In these early cases, just were linked and happened this outbreak happened to start with the gay male community and so that led. If you're thinking about kind of this religious backlash, religious leaders saying that gay identity as a crime religious community religious leaders saying that the identity that God will punish this community, this public health crisis could not have been worse worse in terms of its timing it really created this perception among those opponents of LGBTQ equality that this was that visible manifestation of what their leaders had been telling them that this was God punishing this community because of their conduct, and, you know, as a result we saw a terrible terrible response from public health officials from the federal level on down to move to the next slide. The US government failing to act for several years and take this public health crisis seriously and we actually today in 2021 are living through another public health crisis and we can look at what the government has been to COVID-19 and you know within a few months of the disease being detected a vaccine being identified and trials being undertaken and you know within a year of those first cases of COVID-19 emerging widespread vaccination campaigns in this country. The AIDS crisis is different 1981 July 1981 this disease is really publicly identified, and it's not until 1995 that significant treatment option options are available and 14 years that gap of progress that period of marginalization and isolation for many in this community means that in the United States as of this year. More than 700,000 people died of AIDS and today in 2021 1.2 million Americans still live with an HIV infection. So this was a public health crisis that was became a political crisis because of inaction by the federal government. And so, once again, the LGBTQ community begins protesting and in the mid 1980s groups like act up form to undertake really high profile really aggressive protests staging die ends where 1000 hundreds of people 1000s of people would park in an intersection in downtown New York or would overwhelm the National Institutes of Health in Washington DC and and simulate the folks that had died because of inaction and lay down in protest to speak out against what was being done at that wasn't being done at that time. These protests culminate in passage of the Ryan White Care Act in 1990 again nine years before we see a comprehensive solution or comprehensive response from the federal government could you imagine if COVID-19 if the government ignored it for nine years, what the response would have been, and that's what we saw in the LGBTQ community. It's also worth noting the marginalization that existed Ryan White who the act is named after was a wonderful young man who contracted HIV and AIDS and ultimately died of it because of a blood transfusion he was not LGBTQ plus though. And so they would not even in 1990 they chose a non queer person and non LGBTQ person as the, as the sort of person to lift up for why AIDS was a priority, further, or further demonstrate in the marginalization the ignorance of LGBTQ people so we have religious backlash, a public health crisis, but the same tools of protest, the same tools of coming together are what helped the community speak out in this moment of public health emergency, and once again begin to coalesce a movement. Once the treatments come out in the mid 1990s and the AIDS crisis AIDS turns from a death sentence to a chronic condition that can be managed with medication, we begin to see the community organizing again, and we can advance to the next slide. And some of this organized at, you know, in parallel to the public health crisis in Berkeley California in 1984, the city extends its city benefits to partners of their employees. And this begins this concept of domestic partnership or of civil unions of how do we get access to the rights and responsibilities of marriage without necessarily calling it marriage yet a way to sort of incrementally make progress in this space so 1984 Berkeley California does it by the 1990s City of Seattle, other large cities around the country are doing it in this in the year 2000 the state of Vermont approves a civil union law to give the civil rights of marriage to things that couples without calling it marriage. In 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Court rules that marriage equality is the law under the Massachusetts Constitution and that begins this movement towards formal marriage equality. In 2007 the legislature approved the first domestic partnership law so that was a statewide act to give all LGBT couples in 2007. And it wasn't all rights of marriage it was the sort of couple dozen most fundamental rights the right to visit your partner in the hospital or to care for them if they're unwell. And then in 2008 expanding it, and then in 2010 extending it to be in essence, a civil union law so in 2010 that measure ended up on the ballot here in Washington voters approved that referendum. And then that set the stage for two years later in 2012, the legislature by law approved marriage equality for Washington residents that also ended up on the ballot. In the first instance in the United States voters in 2012 approved marriage equality at the ballot at a statewide level here in Washington. This is part of that continuing movement that culminates in June of 2015 in a five for decision with the US Supreme Court holding that Americans are guaranteed the right to marry. And as one of the fundamental liberties we are guaranteed under the 14th amendment and we can advance to the next slide. Justice Kennedy who wrote the majority opinion writes that there's no union more profound than marriage for it embodies the highest ideals of love fidelity and protection sacrifice and family informing a marital union to people become something greater than they once were and so this is the acknowledgement by the US Supreme Court that our US Constitution guarantees each of us, the right to marry our partner under the law. This is a huge moment when we think back to the 1970s. This is that the, that early gay rights movement, finally, summiting Mount Everest that they've been looking at that we have now achieved that fundamental right that fundamental recognition of our unions of our partnerships of our by our government. And, as we learned from the 1970s, what happens next we can advance the next slide, immediately, a backlash from conservative elements in our society again. There was Scalia, writing it a strong dissenting opinion calling it a threat to American democracy the idea that LGBTQI plus people, marrying the people that they love having that recognition having those protections is a threat to American democracy, horrifyingly, hateful language. Of course, we see movements in the Congress to propose a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage which had been considered earlier but again renewed in the aftermath of this, and even our advocates knowing James Brenner who was a plaintiff and there's a bunch of cases that ended up Supreme Court overfell versus Hodges was the main one but James Brenner was a plaintiff in a Florida case who said, you know, it's a dream come true. Now you can get married in Florida but fired the next day so there's still a lot of work to do. And that's incredibly right we reached the summit of this great, this great accomplishment, and just like so many other people have been mountaineers once we got to that summit we realized there was an even bigger set of summits ahead of us, and that's what we're going to talk about a little bit here in the next few minutes so let's advance the next slide. Legal achievements in our state. We have made progress beyond marriage equality for a while we were leading the efforts there for example, we passed marriage equality before the Supreme Court took action in 2015. In 2006 we passed the Anderson Murray anti discrimination law to ensure that LGBTQ people in our state are protected in employment in housing throughout our society from discrimination. The law just a few years ago, ended up in front of the US Supreme Court because our attorney general sued a local flower shop for for declining she refused to provide flowers for a same sex wedding celebration, and our attorney general, citing Anderson Murray anti discrimination law suit her to force compliance with the law ended up in front of the US Supreme Court and our law has been upheld. So, example of Washington taking action to help propel this national conversation. We also have codified non binary markers for legal documents including birth certificates and driver's license and other places to expand recognition of trans and non binary people in our society. We're going to continue on the next slide to talk a little bit more about some of the things we've done as well we banned conversion therapy to protect and save youth in our state from that form of abusive treatment that is really 10 amount to torture that lies in court right now with folks trying to challenge it under the First Amendment and religious grounds that with the court so far, upholding it. Conversion therapy is another sort of in addition to marriage equality which is recognition of our unions of our love conversion therapy also speaks to this recognition by our government of our right to exist and our right to exist without being labeled as disordered until the early 1970s, the American Psychological Association and other mental health professionals had classified being LGBTQ being queer as a mental disorder and so can this conversion therapy ban speaks to, you know, formally eliminating any possibility any sense that there's something wrong with being LGBTQ plus from the law from the way that our government treats us. We also in the criminal justice space have worked to advance protections for trans people against identity based violence passing strengthened hate crimes laws in this state, and just a couple of years ago passing the Nikki Junehausen law to protect against the use of a trans panic defense there was this old legal concept that you could claim you were so upset by discovering someone was LGBTQ or trans that it put you whipped you into a frenzy and you weren't actually able to commit a crime because you were so upset that you didn't know right from wrong anymore and so we have banned any use of that kind of defense to be clear that identity based violence is a crime 100%. And then this year advancing on the health equity space we passed the transformative and sweeping law to require that gender affirming care be covered by insurance companies, including our public insurance programs Medicare or Medicaid and and Apple Health and others so one more way of ensuring that more people get access to the treatment and care they need. This is important because one study that we cited as we worked on this law showed that rates of suicide and rates of severe mental health complications dropped by, you know, significant levels 25 30% post treatment for our trans and non binary folks when people are allowed to inhabit their bodies in ways that affirm them it ensures that all of us can participate in society without that stigma, without that harm to us so we have accomplished after marriage equality, even more Washington State continuing to lead the nation, but there continues to be again that push and pull we can advance to the next slide. That backlash again and we've seen it in our state we've seen it across the country with the rise of anti trans rhetoric. We saw it in the previous administration with the with President Trump, attempting to push trans service members out of the military, making measures to exclude trans people from participation in health care, we see the religious right pushing back under the guise of religious freedom to allow continued discrimination, even in public contracts where religious organizations are delivering services like housing or others, trying to get standing to discriminate on the basis of someone's identity so this backlash, just like it happened in the 1970s just like it happened. You know, after marriage equality continues as we undertake these further measures we can advance to the next slide. So some of these attacks have manifested in political ways and we've seen in our state and in states across the country, laws introduced and not in our state, but in other states laws passed to criminalize trans folks using particular laws. In our state, there was a law not to criminalize it but to but to erode these protections and it came to the Senate floor for a vote when we had a Republican majority in the state Senate for a few years, and this back anti trans bill failed just by one vote. Thankfully we've built strong pro equality majority in the Senate since then but just demonstrating how much this fear and hysteria can spread. And now in recent years have seen bills that are attempting to ban trans folks participating in sports in their, the gender that they identify with. We also know that many of the protections at the national level so through the federal government are folk are created are dependent on action by the courts or by executive order so President Biden when he took office in January, reversed a lot of the Trump era, executive orders against LGBT people and actually passed pro equality executive orders well because those are dependent on the President. If we see another president elected in the future they could cancel those orders again so similarly the decisions have given some of this some of these rights the Supreme Court in 2019 2020 voting on employment protections for LGBTQ people, but an act of Congress could reverse those and so we want to see action by the Congress on something like the Equality Act which they're discussing right now to put these protections into law and there's a fierce debate over it. In addition, these religious exemptions are religious freedom protections that were passed by Republican Congress and President Trump, a couple of years ago, are calling into question whether LGBTQ plus people can get treatment at religiously hospitals here in our state here in the Puget Sound area. Many of our hospitals are affiliated with a Catholic church affiliate affiliated with a face faith faith based organization, and there's justifiable fear that if these religious exemptions allowed to continue that that means that some LGBTQ people won't be able to access that the care that they're entitled to it's part of why we passed the Gender Affirming Treatment Act this year, and why we're trying to create state level protection but at the federal level, these protections don't exist. And as a result of that we see a real patchwork of protections for LGBTQ people across the country if you live in Washington, if you live in California if you live in New York or Illinois or Massachusetts, you have strong protections legal protections for the LGBTQ plus community, but if you live in states with different governing philosophies if you live in Idaho or if you live in Oklahoma or if you live in Arkansas, we're seeing the LGBTQ community at risk because there are not strong national protections in the state by state framework the state of Arkansas passing laws to prohibit doctors from providing gender affirming care to trans people, particularly young trans people. Really a miss a mishmash, and what that leads to is the LGBTQ community having their rights dependent on their geography and we know so many queer people that, you know, because of life circumstances aren't able to be mobile are in a community, because that's where they're caregiving or because they can't afford to move someplace else, really seeing their identity their freedom, their ability to be who they are decided by where they were born, rather than by having one standard across the country for how we treat people. We can advance the next slide. We also see social risks, not just the political impacts but that leads to social impacts as well. The American Medical Association called the anti trans violence and epidemic and it's only gotten worse since 2019 we see surveys of trans youth identifying that significant numbers 54% verbally harassed 24% physically harassed 13% sexually assaulted, almost 20% leaving school because of mistreatment. This is unacceptable and while there's been acceptance for people who look like me, white cis gay men. We know that intersectional identities being queer in other communities or being queer in some religious communities some ethnic communities can provide marginalization on top of that so a lot of challenges remain so in my final minutes I just want to focus on where I see us moving next so we can advance the next slide. We need federal protections right away and I mentioned HR five the Equality Act. It has passed the House of Representatives in February, and it's stalled in the US Senate we need to see federal action to enshrine these protections so that LGBTQ people aren't dependent on what state they live in but have these protections everywhere. We also need at the state level representatives in place who will fight back against this movement and here in Washington, we have constructed a pro equality majority in both the House and Senate of our legislature to ensure that even when bad ideas have been introduced and we've seen lawmakers here in Washington introduce anti trans bills for bathrooms and sports and other places, and those bills, never see the light of day because we have pro equality majorities we need to expand that movement across the country to more states. Let's advance the next slide. And we need more representation in government so we need more LGBTQ people in positions of prominence in positions of power in those policymaking conversations, folks like Sarah McBride the first trans state senator in the country elected in Delaware. Last year are powerful voices for change in our state, we have not yet had a transgender Washingtonian in the state legislature that needs to change we need more representation. We also need to identify and lift up and focus on the intersectional identities we're so fortunate today to have beautiful amazing women of color who are part of our LGBT caucus in the legislature who are informing us about these intersections like Kirsten Harris tally and Emily Randall in the state Senate who are helping us understand the intersections that are here. We also have to find ways to increase sexual except social acceptance not sexual acceptance social acceptance. And that's where things like comprehensive sex ed in 2020 incorporated into the curriculum, who we are, how we live teaching our students what it means to be LGBTQ so that those who are feel seen and feel safe and those who identify understand us and accept us and we can live together. And one final slide. I also want to talk about coming out and I think coming out looks different for all of us but it is an important way that we can declare our identities and really be who we were meant to be in our communities and I know that not everyone can come out to everyone at at every moment we have to do this in ways that are safe that lift us up and being out to everyone doesn't mean your more LGBTQ than someone who can't be out, but it is a powerful proclamation of who you are and I would say coming out to us is the most liberating step, and then finding ways to come out to the people around us that's how we built acceptance polls show when we did polling on marriage equality, that if a voter knew someone personally who was LGBTQ plus, they were 6% likely to vote for marriage equality, and it was about the reverse if they didn't know somebody so when people know who we are when folks in our society can identify with us and our stories. And that's what builds exception, except that's what builds our welcome this that's what builds our ability to make progress. That's what builds, builds acceptance, and it's what will get us to where we need to be so let's pass laws. Let's get representative and let's come out as much as we can. That is the moral of the story after marriage equality passed and with that I will pass it back to Kenton and we will take a little break and look forward to your questions soon. Yes, yeah thank you so much Senator leahs. It was wonderful to hear your full presentation about kind of the past, present and the future of what queer politics looks like in Washington and in our country. Hello everybody welcome back. Thank you for staying with us. So, we, I think are now ready to get started with our q amp a with our presenter so remember that you can still add your questions in the q amp a feature at the bottom of the screen if you haven't already. And we will go ahead and get started so I can go ahead and read off the first one so our first question that's in the q amp a right now says. Senator leahs I follow your work and thank you for the influence you have had in making progress on the rights for LGBTQIA plus folks within our state, which I have directly benefited from. Can you share your politics and approach to influencing and changing the course of history by ensuring that the urgent need for racial justice is intertwined in your work for LGBTQIA plus rights and policy, which historically has either excluded or or de centered racial justice policy, thereby further reinforcing white supremacy embedded in the advancement of white LGBTQIA plus people. This is not a new historical pattern, the same de centering of the needs of the BIPOC communities occurred during women's rights which advanced white women's rights at the cost of people of color, etc. Thank you for your insights on an intersectional approach to LGBTQIA plus rights for everyone. A great question and I think you know the lecture we talked a little bit about that with how we've even whitewashed the story of Stonewall in 1969 and really erased Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera for decades. So I think part of it is first just acknowledging and being explicit that this has happened and that we have we do need to center on the voices of those who are most marginalized within our community which means tackling intersectional challenges so I think being honest being up front and lifting this up is the first step. I think, depending on where you're at in this journey I think for for white folks, this is about learning about anti racism and doing the work on our own to understand the structures of oppression that exist today that have existed throughout our history and what our role is both in perpetuating those and in taking them on and I think one of the most important things I've learned as a leader is to just be open and questioning and ready to take on new information and when I hear for example the experiences of people of color marginalized folks in the community rather than trying to explain the situation just being open to understanding that people are coming from different perspectives so I think if for white folks out there let's do anti racist work. My line has some great programs and opportunities for folks to engage in how to become an anti racist advocate. And then for our BIPOC communities. I think this is a moment where we need more representation we need folks who are ready and willing to step forward and help us to do this, you know historically we've had a white led movement, and that just is not going to solve these problems we need intersectional leaders, like Kirsten Harris tally in the House of Representatives here in Washington or Emily Randall in our State Senate, who can bring with them, these lived experiences to help us tackle this. Intersecting challenges. And then the sort of final thing I will say is LGBTQ people comprise a minority of the population so our rights have always been dependent on solidarity with other marginalized voices so we need to be in solidarity with our communities of color we need to be in solidarity. With other marginalized communities to make sure that our rights are protected it's why I also am proudly a feminist we've got to make sure that everyone has rights to reproductive care. If the government can control women's bodies or reproductive people's bodies. It's not too far from where they can control all of our bodies so we need to be in solidarity with others fighting for justice. And so those are some of the things I would say in my approach, and I think that all of us can sort of work on and focus on as we move forward. Thank you so much. And then I'll pass it over to Doris for our next question. All right, thank you so much for being here with us this afternoon. I have a question to you from one of our students in the audience. The question states, I learned so many things I didn't know about the struggles facing the LGBTQI plus community. How can myself and others become more involved in supporting the community. Well, I would just say first attending this week's week of activities is a great first step so I want to just applaud you for stepping in and taking the time to come to these activities I know. Highline has a few more activities planned over the course of the rest of the week so take advantage of those participate in those I think you'll see new and different lenses. I also just blanket advice to folks who want to get involved in making change is find organizations that are making change and join them so in Washington State, we have a great group called equal rights Washington. And if you Google search them you'll find them as an organization, they are at the intersection of LGBTQ liberation but also doing it with an intersectional lens as we talked about in response to Asia's question so I think joining equal rights Washington is a great way to get plugged and they will tell you about what's happening at the local and state level. We also have some great national organizations and I don't want to give preference to one over the other there's many that are working in the trans space and the LGBT space, focused on women focused on men focused on other parts of the community so find those organizations that are making a difference, and then find that community at Highline I know that there is student organizations and organizing on campus and other people who are doing this work, and, and create that sense of community and solidarity to get those are the things I would say are early ways that you can get more involved in supporting the community and some of those are really easy, like get on here W's email list, that doesn't take a lot of work, you'll get a few emails, you'll learn about it over time, becoming engaged in face to face organizing in community may take a little bit more of our time so find that space on the spectrum that fits what you've got and don't let anybody tell you you're not a good member of the LGBTQ community because you didn't do things one way or the other there are so many ways to make change, find your way to do it and engage with your community in ways that build us all up and lift us all up. Thank you so much. I have another question for you that I'm actually I think we'll kind of build off of that one a little bit so the timing works great so my question for you is as an openly LGBTQ plus politician, how did you personally get into politics and what would be your advice for other queer and trans folks looking to engage in politics, activism and advocacy work. I say there's really no right way to do it, I got involved in politics, not originally because of my queer identity I was involved through other sort of aspects of who I am I was a small business owner and lived in my community for my whole life and ran for the council because I just wanted to help contribute to the community and I'm making a better place for me and my family to live in. When I got to the legislature is the first time I really engaged with queer politics. And for me it was the realization that if there was only seven of us in the legislature that I would LGBT if I didn't do my share if I didn't do my work, our whole community couldn't move forward and so that's why I really want to emphasize that there are so many big change and I see a comment from Stephanie about how political involvement being risky for some people or having its own marginalizing and negative impacts I totally agree there's no right way to be an advocate for justice. I think we all need to step up and do our part are the part that we can do, and maybe that means joining an email list and just reading for a little while. Maybe it means talking to your best friend about what you can do in your small friend group to advance justice. Maybe it means running for office maybe it means, you know becoming like Malala use of Zion becoming an international spokesperson. There's so many spaces on this spectrum, where people can speak out and I just want to emphasize that there's no wrong way to do it the only thing that I really want to discourage us from doing is nothing. I think complacency and invisibility are what will hurt our movement and let's find safe and accepting ways of being out of doing our work and like I said, joining an email list is a pretty safe way as a first step. Those are private email list no one's going to know you're on it. That's a great way to just get engaged so do something whether it's small and safe, and it's a tip toe into it, or do something big that whole spectrum is equally valid. Each of us has to engage in a way that's safe for us, and is meaningful for us, without, you know, doubling down on marginalization and trauma that we've experienced. Thank you so much, I think, in regards to Stephanie's question just diving deeper into it. I'll just read it out loud for folks who may have not seen it. Political involvement feels unrewarding or even abusive for many especially people versus from systemic non dominant groups. Political structures were created in our continually recreated to enforce oppression to exclude political participation or power. What other ways can individuals effectively pressure political structure and discussions when voting on or government roles are an option. Yes and that's, I think, exactly where sort of community and and sort of engaging in your community, whatever that definition is for you is a really powerful way to make change so that may be being a visible advocate within your faith community it may mean being a visible advocate within your family for the LGBTQ space, it may be just coming out to yourself as a first step for today for this week for this month so I do think that political activism is one way to make change we also see within the business community and corporate structures there's employee resource groups at a lot of our large companies where employees of Amazon or Microsoft are bowing rally together to push their company to move equality forward and we've seen in other states where business the business community felt that queer community to defeat anti LGBTQ measure so there's NGOs there's the faith community there's within your work and your space there, your learning community here at Highline that there's so many places and I don't, I don't want to sound like they all are equally powerful I don't want to be blasé about that. I just want to suggest that each of us can find ways that are suited to where we are what's safe for us in this moment to get engaged. I also, I believe that there is a critical mass of folks in our government that want to make change systematically so it is true that our government was created by white men for the benefit of other white men. We are seeing today just a huge change with folks getting elected to office and folks pressing on the government to be more inclusive and equitable and so I don't want folks to just give up on political structures it may not be the right way for you right now because of your lived experience, but I also believe that in our democracy each of us does have to find ways to step up and maybe that means joining with another organization if you don't feel like you want to directly engage with the government that's very valid but equal rights to Washington or the OASIS center in Tacoma or Black trans women's collective organizations there's so many other ways to engage. I think all of us should find those ways that are safe for us and meaningful for us to be engaged. Yeah, thank you so much. Another question that we have in the Q&A is another from Aisha. She asks, how do we get involved with the intersectional task force that you mentioned earlier in your presentation. So the LGBTQ plus commission in state government is sort of the place that we're doing a lot of this intersectional work in in the government. So the LGBTQ plus commission, and I think Kenton and Doris maybe we can share that a link out or some resources on how to get engaged there we've got about a dozen commissioners and 15 commissioners from around the state that meet and advise state government that's kind of that intersectional conversations going and we've intentionally those commissioners reflect the diversity of the LGBTQ community so we've got gender and racial and geographic and and even the sort of beautiful letters of the LGBTQ spectrum are represented on that commission. In addition, I would say equal rights Washington for a non governmental voices doing this intersectional work led by a constituent of mine, an amazing black woman who is trying to bring racial justice and equality as a lens for their LGBTQ organizing so those are two equal rights Washington and the LGBTQ Commission and state government or two places that I would direct people where this great works being done and there should there are ways to engage there. So that's like ying says what do commissioners mean it's a phrase for the folks who are appointed as board members, or are sort of permanent, they, they participate for a three or four year period on the LGBTQ Commission we call them commissioners so there's 15 of them that have been appointed but they have a lot of public dialogue public organizing where they're engaging the broad community as well so that's a good entry point. Thank you, Edwina and Doris putting links so thank you for helping me with that. Yeah, thank you so much for your responses as far and we still have a little bit of time left so if anybody else in our audience today has questions that you would like to add to the q amp a feel free to do so and we'd be more than happy to address those. I have one, if that's okay. I'm suddenly as you sound like a very busy person so her folks like you that are championing, you know, in our community. How do you unwind and take care of yourself. That's a great question. It varies different times of the year. So I have my, my family my people come from Scandinavia so I get seasonal depression. And so this dark period of the year it's for me it's just like giving self permission to just take a little bit more time to do tasks and you know just being gentle on myself. I do love to travel I love to go particularly to places that are sunny I think because we get so much gray here so I'm going to go on a work trip to Phoenix next week get some sun, see a slightly different place I love to do that and then I love to cook and bake so for me, like that I get to go into autopilot a little bit while I'm cooking and I can take my mind off of everything else and just focus on the onions in front of me or the bread dough in front of me and and unplug. And then I also watch shows and read and have recently gone into like, I'm not a gamer because that's like way way above my pay grade but I like some kind of civilization and some kind of like strategy games so those are some of the things I do but it is, it can be hard and overwhelming at times and I think it's okay sometimes to just acknowledge that and give ourselves space give myself space to just be how I'm feeling today. Thank you for that. I should say, I have some great people who helped me in my work and in particular, I have a great legislative assistant named Jeremy nap who wrote a thesis for his, his undergrad degree earlier this year on some of the same themes that this lecture was on so he helped me a huge amount of pulling together all the information so usually when you see someone with a fancy title like Senator, there's a bunch of other amazing people working together with us to do all this work so I just want to lift up our LGBTQ staffer Jeremy for all his help and pull the pulling this all together he even designed those slides so they look so pretty. So, there's some great people that help me do my work to and Jeremy is also here in the meeting with us today so yes thank you so much Jeremy for your assistance as well. Alrighty, so it doesn't look like we have any more questions in the Q&A at the moment so I think we can go ahead and wrap things up so yeah, thank you all so much for joining us for today's event. Later today we will be wrapping up LGBTQIA plus week with another fantastic event at 3pm today, we will be having a film viewing of Kumuhina and a discussion of the film so we hope to see you all there. Thank you once again to our presenter Senator Marco leis for sharing your time and your knowledge with us today, and we hope everybody has a great rest of your day. Thank you so much.