CNN
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For the first time in its four-decade history, America’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer civil rights organization has declared a national state of emergency for members of the LGBTQ+ community, the Human Rights Campaign said Tuesday.
“LGBTQ + Americans live in a state of emergency. The increasing threats facing millions in our community are not just unknown – they are real, tangible and dangerous,” the group’s president, Kelley Robinson, said. “In many cases they result in violence against LGBTQ+ people, forcing families to uproot their lives and flee their homes in search of safer states, and cause a tidal wave of increased homophobia and transphobia that puts the safety of each of us at risk. dangerous.”
Along with the emergency declaration, the group will release a digital guidebook, including health and safety resources, a summary of state laws, “know your rights” information and resources designed to support LGBTQ+ travelers and those living in hostile states, it said.
The historic announcement – just days into Pride Month – follows “an unprecedented wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation by 2023,” according to the Human Rights Campaign, as violence against LGBTQ people continues and community rights have become a flashpoint in the 2024 election.
Years after 49 people were killed at the Pulse gay nightclub in Florida, Club Q in Colorado in November became the site of a massacre in a beloved LGBTQ “safe space.”
And the Human Rights Campaign last month issued an updated travel notice for Florida, outlining the potential effects of six bills recently passed there, many signed by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican contender for president who championed the “don’t say gay” and pronoun bills.
Across US state legislatures, at least 417 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced in roughly the first quarter of 2023 – a new record and double the number of bills introduced in all last year, according to data from the American Civil Liberties Union.
19 states have laws restricting gender-affirming care
The number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills signed into law so far this year is more than double last year’s number, which was the highest on record, the Human Rights Campaign said. These include pronoun refusal laws, forced student outing laws, drag bans and “don’t say LGBTQ+” laws.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images/File
Supporters of LGBTQA+ rights marched on March 31 from Union Station to Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court is ready to issue an opinion in a case on whether a business can refuse services to LGBTQ customers.
But although the Human Rights Campaign has issued warnings, the group insists that it will not back down from any attempt to control the community: “LGBTQ+ people across the country will not be erased – not now, not always,” the group said.
