Jorge Martinez

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We’ll learn how to win: HRC’s first leader says history proves LGBTQ+ folks can take on the right

It’s a time to remember the history that is often forgotten and honor the many strides the LGBTQ+ community has made in recent decades. As a queer young person myself, I wanted to better understand the rich history that came before me to gain a deeper appreciation of what it means to be a queer American at this moment in time. 

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I spoke with Victor Basile, a long-time LGBTQ+ rights advocate and the first executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest queer rights advocacy group. Basile was also the co-founder of the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, which supports LGBTQ+ political candidates. This year, he released his memoir Bending Toward Justice, about the history of HRC.

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In our conversation, I was looking for context: I needed something to help me understand the wave of anti-LGBTQ+ attacks we’ve seen in recent years. 

Together, we sat down virtually to look at where we stand and where we go from here. 

LGBTQ Nation: Can you provide an overview of the current landscape of LGBTQ+ rights for queer youth in the US today?

Victor Basile: It’s pretty rough. We’re facing an onslaught of bills against queer youth, with more than 420 anti-LGBTQ bills having been introduced into state/local legislatures this year. They come mostly from red states and queer youth are largely the ones targeted. Until recently we’ve made some great progress. And it’s only in recent years that have we seen — what I call “emboldened behavior — because anti-gay politicians see a political advantage. I see this as a fairly recent development. And it may get rougher before it gets better.

LGBTQ Nation: What do you mean by ‘get rougher’?

VB: In red states, little will get in the way of the passage of many of these anti-LGBTQ bills, try as we might. There are just too many states and too many legislators to successfully fight. But just as we did in the 80s and early 90s when things were so bad, we did learn how to fight and we did learn how to win. And the same is true now: We’re eventually going to beat these attacks back if we stay focused and organized. We’ve been down this road before. 

LGBTQ Nation: Tell me more about the period of time when you served as the head of the Human Rights Campaign 

VB: There were frequent ‘gay bashings’ directed mostly at gay men [like Matthew Shepard]. The police would do little to help, they would say the victim got what they deserved for being gay and the courts would agree. 

The government also turned its back on us when AIDS came around as we watched thousands of people die, which started around 1983. It took Ronald Reagan until 1987, when he made a speech about it. Every year up until then, his administration zeroed out any funding for AIDS research. It wasn’t until 1983 that Congress put money on the books to fight AIDS. But queer youth today don’t know much about that history. Through telling these stories, it may give some hope to today’s youth that we may overcome. 

LGBTQ Nation: What’s on your mind this LGBTQ History Month? 

VB: To know us is to love us; the more visibility, the better life is. Do you know how National Coming Out Day started? It grew from the War Conference held in 1988, which was a gathering of about 275 activists around the country to address the government’s handling of the AIDS epidemic. It was called this way because we felt, back then, that the government was at war with us. And the overwhelming conclusion, despite all our disagreements, was the need for people to be “out” in public and that would eventually change people’s minds about our community.

I was there. It brought together older and younger activists, and women made up a third of the activists. Where it fell short was people of color because it was overwhelmingly white. That was a failure of the War Conference. 

LGBTQ Nation: How would you say the conversations surrounding the LGBTQ+ community have evolved since the 1988 conference?

VB: The term ‘transgender’ was not at all on the boilerplate during my time at the HRC so there was this general unawareness of the trans community. The attacks directed at the lesbian and gay community back then are now being directed to the trans community today; it’s repeating itself. 

And back then, it was so hard to get the mainstream media to cover the LGBTQ community. But turn on the TV now and you’ll see there are LGBTQ characters. The public is now on our side, the polls are still favorable to same-sex marriage even in red states. It’s why this month is so important.

LGBTQ Nation: We’ve talked a lot about the past, but where do we go from here? The future’s looking bleak to me. 

VB: There is little doubt in my mind that we will overcome this. How much time that takes, I don’t know. We have not faced this type of political repression before and just need to figure out how to fight here. It’s a battle we may win state by state, and we have to take care of our own. 

Given everything going on, we’ve come a long way. This is just a setback.

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Queer youth are increasingly using the Internet to find safe spaces & it’s putting them in danger

LGBTQ+ youth face heightened risk online for sexual exploitation and grooming, according to a new report from Thorn. 

Founded in 2009, Thorn is a non-profit dedicated to building the tools and awareness to end child exploitation. Their new survey of over 1500 young people highlights the value queer youth place in online interactions and how queer youth perceive the risks and dangers of online harm.

“There is a perception of increased anonymity and privacy online, and that leads to exploration and more pushing of boundaries,” Melissa Stroebel, Thorn’s Head of Research and Insights, told LGBTQ Nation. 

Online platforms, such as Instagram or Twitter, give queer youth a space to be their true selves, with more than three out of four queer youth saying they view their online communities as essential to their lives. These spaces often act as a readily-available substitute for the types of relationships and safe spaces these youth struggle to find offline.

But this over-reliance on online platforms gives rise to bad actors who seek to manipulate and extort queer youth. 

1 in 5 LGBTQ+ teens have received a request for nudes and are almost 2 times more likely to indicate prior experience of unwanted or potentially risky encounters online than non-LGBTQ+ participants. LGBTQ+ minors were almost twice as likely to report sharing their own nude photos or videos, reporting higher rates of experiences with sexually-explicit images. 

“While there might not be an immediate physical threat in an online interaction, there is an opportunity for manipulation,” said Stroebel. Despite a “physical distance” that gives online users a sense of perceived safety, the risk is still very real for queer youth. 

However, this increased risk for grooming is viewed as ‘normal’ among queer youth, with 91% viewing this as at least somewhat common. 

To explain why that is, Stroebel shared what one queer young person told Thorn: “Everyone is a stranger at some point.” 

Stroebel said that for youth, talking to strangers online is “just the start of the process” to potentially meaningful relationships or exploration even as queer youth understand the risks associated. 

Since kids are well aware of the realities of online interactions, Stroebel says the best way to move forward is to share the voices of queer youth to raise awareness. 

“Some of the risk we see for queer youth is because they have greater barriers to disclosure,” Stroebel said. “They feel they will be blamed, shamed, in some parts because of who they are.”

Parents and caregivers need to “evolve” the sex talk to include the threats of online platforms, such as grooming and sextortion, rather than leave youth to find out those dangers for themselves. Despite it being an all-around awkward conversation, straying away from those topics won’t “shelter” kids, Stroebel says. It serves as a disservice. 

Stroebel encourages parents to have these conversations with their young ones in an “age-appropriate fashion,” so they’re prepared by the time they start going online.

A recent LGBTQ user safety report from GLAAD expands on the risk that queer youth face online, revealing that all five major social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Twitter – received low and failing scores when it comes to safety.

The report found that these platforms fail to implement proper protections against online hate speech and allows misinformation to continue spreading, further harming queer users. Further, many of these lack specific policies to protect LGBTQ+ users and have inadequate content moderation. 

“Dehumanizing anti-LGBTQ content on social media such as misinformation and hate have an outsized impact on real world violence and harmful anti-LGBTQ legislation, but social media platforms too often fail at enforcing their own policies regarding such content,” said GLAAD President and CEO, Sarah Kate Ellis, in a statement. “Especially as many of the companies behind these platforms recognize Pride month, they should recognize their roles in creating a dangerous environment for LGBTQ Americans and urgently take meaningful action.”

By amplifying the voices of queer youth and increasing the data available, Stroebel calls on everyone— not just social media companies— to ground policies in what young people need to be safe and thrive. 

“This is not the exclusive responsibility of caregivers, educators, politicians or tech companies, it’s all of us,” said Stroebel. “The entire community needs to do a better job of showing up for young people.”

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If politicians want a brighter future for young queer people there’s an obvious solution

As soon as I cross state lines, I mask my queerness.

I attended a school-sponsored trip to the Smoky Mountains while in middle school a few years ago, to explore Tennessee’s vast countryside and stunning views. We traveled as a cohort, and I was lucky to have close friends on the trip, with whom I felt extremely comfortable sharing my sexuality. In my hometown of Chicago, I never felt unsafe expressing myself. It wasn’t a secret— I crossed my legs every time I sat, my painted nails reflected the Southern heat, and my octet-raising voice certainly wasn’t helping.

But in Tennessee, the stares started to pile up, from the staff at the hotels, the servers at the restaurants we ate at, and even the security guards whose job it was to make us feel safe. I bought the cheapest nail polish remover at a local drugstore; I uncrossed my legs whenever I caught myself falling into old habits; I cleared my throat before speaking to ensure it came across as masculine as possible. I was afraid for my physical safety.

As soon as the plane landed back in Chicago, I breathed a sigh of relief, sat at the bedside table and despite the exhaustion from the long flight, I repainted my nails.

As queer youth, we are forced to limit who we can be queer with and where. We code-switch whenever the situation demands it. We observe which teachers respect our pronouns, which friends say slurs too liberally, whether our parents were home or not. And now, states are adding to that burden – codifying those worries into law.

Today, an unprecedented amount of anti-LGBTQ laws are flooding state legislatures across the country. One after the other, conservative states are rushing to ban trans youth from participating in sports, ban comprehensive sex education in schools, undermine longstanding & federally-backed non-discrimination policies, and prevent gender-affirming medical care. On a national scale, LGBTQ youth are now having to determine for themselves whether our authenticity is worth risking our security.

As queer youth, we desperately need the government to take action and pass the Equality Act today. Whether or not we are entitled to LGBTQ rights has become dependent upon the geographical boundaries of where our feet stand. Today, in 27 states there are no explicit laws protecting us from discrimination and in 21 states it is still legal to discriminate against LGBTQ people in many spheres of public life, including education.

The Equality Act would protect LGBTQ people from protections on a federal level so that our rights are equal no matter where in the country we choose to live. It would expand federal civil rights laws to protect us from discrimination in employment, housing, credit, jury service, and federally funded programs, such as those for health and education, as well as public places and spaces. It would allow us to live as our most authentic selves.

I watched the Equality Act first pass the House of Representatives in 2019 through my phone’s tiny screen. For the first time, I felt great pride in my country, assured we were finally heading for the right track, oblivious to the onslaught of anti-LGBTQ laws that would soon spread across the country like wildfire in the years to come. Just as Pride month began this year, President Biden issued a proclamation in which he called on Congress to pass the Equality Act, which he said, “will enshrine long overdue civil rights protections and build a better future for all LGBTQI+ Americans.”

But currently, the legislation is languishing in the Senate. Despite repeated calls from LGBTQ advocates and the endorsement of the entire federal Democratic caucus, there has now been no action on the bill since the middle of last year. Supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans, the Equality Act still seems in danger of failure even as it nears the finish line in the Senate. We are on the precipice of finally ensuring LGBTQ can be themselves and live without fear of discrimination, no matter the state they reside in, but we can’t get there if our elected officials keep ignoring our rallying cries.

State lines will never define who we are. Queer people exist in every state, are here to stay, and we deserve the right to feel safe while doing so. As the list of dangerous anti-LGBTQ state legislations grows rapidly, the Senate has a responsibility to act now to swiftly pass the Equality Act for President Biden to enact into law.

Across the country, queer youth are watching closely for the day they no longer have to hide their true selves – their desire to play sports, dress how they choose, and access healthcare that affirms their gender identities. Just as flowers do not choose where they bloom, LGBTQ young people deserve the right to thrive everywhere we exist. The fight for equality must not die in committee nor across state lines.

Jorge Martinez is a Senior at Bennett Day School in Chicago, IL. Jorge is a community activist for queer voices and a youth ambassador with AMAZE.org.