Blog: Perspectives

While I identify as a lesbian, in college, my queerness never felt queer enough to identify with the LGBTIQ community. My outward expression in the way that I dressed typically led to incorrect assumptions about my sexuality which I knew inadvertently freed me from the stigma and discrimination I thought I was supposed to face. Coming to understand my own identity was largely done in the context of my immediate surroundings - my other gay friends, my own experiences, and my gender studies classes. The media, I thought, represented a version of being queer that I couldn’t find myself in. I felt similarly about pride events. The first NYC pride parade I attended was in 2018 - the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. My makeup, straightened hair, and cut-off shorts were no match for the enormous amount of glitter and colorful wigs that decorated large floats. I knew I looked like an ally. 

The High Level Political Forum (HLPF) is a United Nations (UN) conference that meets annually under the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and every four years at the UN General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York. It reviews and follows up on the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development. The HLPF is tasked with tracking the international implementation and progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Although SDGs are rooted in and interlinked with human rights, it is a development space with its own language and advocacy entry points as such.

June is Pride month - four weeks usually filled with parades, protest marches and a variety of other expressions for the dignity, equality and human rights of LGBTIQ people. It is a time for LGBTIQ movements to reflect on the progress so far, and build momentum for the much needed change still to come. 

In this intensely personal episode Senior Development Manager Chandler Bazemore opens up to Executive Director Jessica Stern about growing up as a Black man in Virginia - the capital of the confederacy, about the four key conversations parents have with Black kids as they grow up maneuvering racial inequality in the US, and his hopes and fears about the possibility of change in the aftermath of the worldwide protests sparked by the brutal killing by police of George Floyd.

Today was supposed to be OutRight's 30th anniversary gala. Oh, the dreams we had! Our board and staff worked incredibly hard on the gala, which was designed to celebrate decades of advocacy for LGBTIQ communities around the world and finance our global programs.  We postponed it several weeks ago due to COVID, and for the first time, I'm relieved. I cannot imagine celebrating tonight. Since the brutal killing of George Floyd set the US on fire, since we learned of the killings of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, Americans have taken to the streets to protest institutionalized racism and a fundamentally flawed criminal justice system. Of course, these terrible acts are not new; they join a long list of atrocities that have taken far too many Black lives. After a night’s sleep interrupted by police helicopters whirring loudly overhead as they tracked, photographed, and intimidated protestors across Brooklyn, I'm tired, furious, and heartbroken. I'm also reflecting on what I and we can learn from these simultaneous milestones. 

This week began with the horrifying news that yet another African American, George Floyd, died senselessly as the result of police brutality. The video of Mr. Floyd’s killing demonstrates yet again the ongoing violence against Black Americans, including the recent deaths of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and racist threats against Chris Cooper.