Monday, June 3, 2024, is the 19th Annual LGBTQ Families Day, a time to celebrate the many families with LGBTQ people in them who live in every state and almost every county of the U.S. The event aims to raise awareness of the diversity, joys, and challenges of all LGBTQ families—found, formed, and chosen—who exist throughout our society.
How to Participate
Anyone who supports LGBTQ families is welcome to participate by:
Posting or sharing on any social media channel on June 3, 2024, in celebration and support of LGBTQ families. Include the hashtag #LGBTQFamiliesDay. Ideas include a family photo/video, family anecdote, image of an LGBTQ-inclusive kids’ book, or a simple message of support.
Following the hashtag #LGBTQFamiliesDay throughout the day and sharing the stories, images, and thoughts from other participants.
Celebrating in your community in whatever way uplifts the voices and experiences of LGBTQ families.
Background
LGBTQ Families Day was developed by the award-winning LGBTQ parenting site Mombian and is sponsored by Family Equality, PFLAG National, GLAAD, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), and COLAGE. Additional partners include Gays With Kids, OurShelves, PregnantTogether, and the Queer Family Podcast. Since 2006 (originally as Blogging for LGBTQ Families Day), the day has engaged parents across the LGBTQ spectrum, parents of LGBTQ children, LGBTQ individuals, children of LGBTQ parents, and non-LGBTQ family members and allies. The event is held on the first weekday of June, between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, in order to honor all parents but also to highlight that not all families fit into the traditional structure of one mother and one father. Additionally, June is LGBTQ Pride Month.
What’s on the horizon in the fight for LGBTQ+ equality?
This is a pivotal moment in the work for justice and the freedom for all of us to live with dignity and without discrimination. In anticipation of GLAD’s next chapter, staff and board members have been asking the question, “What’s on the horizon in the fight for LGBTQ+ equality?”
We would love for you to share your thoughts with us on that question too in the form below!
With over 45 years of advocacy under GLAD’s belt, we derive strength from past victories, and hope for the future from our community and how we show up for each other.
Share your thoughts!
From our staff and board:
“LGBTQ+ rights are fundamentally a challenge to deeply entrenched attitudes about gender and gender nonconformity. Even after the stunning achievement of a right to marry nationwide a decade ago, it was clear we still had work to do to reach a deep embrace of LGBTQ+ existence in our society. As the spread of disinformation and anti-LGBTQ+ political attacks accelerate, we must double down on working toward understanding and acceptance of our full humanity and full expression.”
–Bennett Klein, Senior Director of Litigation and HIV Law
“It’s important to make sure LGBTQ+ folks understand what’s happening across the country. It can be difficult to follow where new anti-LGBTQ+ bills are moving and where we are in the complex legal framework to fight back. Through education, we can quell people’s fears so everyone, whether or not they have a law degree or political knowledge, feels empowered to act by voting, contacting their legislators, and understanding their rights.”
–Braedyn Dorn, Public Affairs & Education Assistant
“To uphold our country’s foundational principles of freedom and equality, we must champion the voices and rights of transgender folks with unwavering determination. This means ensuring every individual has access to necessary medical care and legal protections nationwide and fostering understanding so that every person can live authentically and safely. It demands collective action to create a future where dignity and fulfillment are accessible to all.”
–Dallas Ducar, Board
“Centering trans and BIPOC voices and perspectives is necessary as we push back against the mounting wave of attacks on trans and BIPOC humanity. This will mean ensuring trans and BIPOC community members have seats at the table where decisions are made, especially ones that disproportionately affect them and their safety. And it means white and cisgender folks meaningfully shifting power to others who have historically been less represented in decision-making positions.”
–Jordan Caress-Wheelwright, Assistant Director of Planned and Individual Giving
“A large proportion of Gen Z identifies as LGBTQ+. I believe this shift has significant potential to change the landscape of LGBTQ+ activism. The more openly LGBTQ+ people we have in society, the more opportunities exist for empathy and learning. As this younger generation lives openly and authentically, views can change thanks to those personal connections.”
–Michelle Peng, Individual Giving and Special Events Coordinator
“LGBTQ+ people, especially BIPOC LGBTQ+ individuals, are overrepresented at every stage of our criminal justice system, from juvenile justice to parole, and are more likely to live in poverty than their straight and cisgender counterparts. I hope, in the near future, we can build community alternatives to jails and prisons and uplift the substantial number of LGBTQ+ individuals in poverty through an expanded social safety net. I dream of a future where all members of the LGTBQ+ community have comprehensive social, economic, and political rights!”
–Mel Eskender, Legal Assistant
Read Boston Magazine for more about what our staff and interns see on the horizon for LGBTQ+ rights!
This Black History Month, we celebrate Black LGBTQ+ artists, musicians, athletes, and poets who have made or are making an important impact in their field.
Three Black LGBTQ+ Artists You Should Know
sarah huny young (she/they) is an award winning queer visual artist whose portraits celebrate Black women and the LGBTQ+ community. Their portraits often portray how Black queer people experiencing intimacy, self-love, and tenderness is an act of defiance. huny also dedicated to capturing the beauty of platonic and romantic love between Black women and femmes and hopes others will too. Follow them on Instagram and check out their photography.
Kehinde Wiley (he/him) is a painter recognized for his portraits of Black and Brown people in traditional settings of Old Master paintings. Kehinde’s portraits celebrate Black and brown people while challenging narratives in art history regarding representation of race and power. In 2018, Kehinde was selected to paint former President Barack Obama’s official portrait for the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. This portrait was the first painted by a Black gay artist in the collection. Follow Kehinde on Instagram and check out his portraits.
Zanele Muholi (they/them) is a South African visual activist and photographer. Each of Zanele’s works, primarily of the South African Black LGBTQI community, has a political agenda to challenge culturally dominant views of gender, race, and sexuality. They have received many awards, including the International Centre of Photography Infinity Award, and their work has been exhibited worldwide. Follow Zanele on Facebook and Instagram.
Three Black LGBTQ+ Musicians You ShouldKnow
UMI (she/they) is a queer Black and Japanese R&B and neo-soul musician and songwriter. UMI’s music reflects her mixed heritage, and their meditations on self-love and acceptance in their songs has resonated with queer audiences. Check out UMI’s music and follow her on Instagram.
Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton (she/her) unapologetically pushed boundaries as a queer, gender nonconforming Blues icon between the 1950’s through 1980’s. She was the original singer of “Hound Dog,” later made famous by Elvis Presley, and the writer of “Ball and Chain,” later covered by Janis Joplin. Big Mama was influential in shaping American music, including blues, rock and roll, folk, and R&B. Read about Big Mama’s impact.
Jackie Shane (she/her) was a transgender R&B and soul singer. Jackie knew she was transgender from a young age and challenged laws that outlawed her identity as she grew up unapologetically in the Jim Crow South. Jackie eventually moved to Canada where she rose to fame in the Toronto nightclub scene in the 1960’s. In 2018, a year before her passing, Jackie’s anthology album, “Any Other Way,” was nominated for a Grammy. Learn more about Jackie.
Three Black LGBTQ+ Athletes You Should Know
Glenn Burke (he/him) was the first openly gay Major League Baseball player. Glenn played for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Oakland Athletics, played in the 1977 World Series, and is credited for creating the “high five.” He publicly came out in 1982, three years after his retirement. Glenn died in 1995 from AIDS. Check out Glenn discuss his sexuality and the MLB.
Caster Semenya (she/her) is a South African three-time world champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist 800m runner. In 2023, she won a discrimination case challenging the World Athletics requirement that people with differences in sex development (DSD) take testosterone-suppressing medication to be eligible to compete. Caster’s fight will have lasting impacts on the rights of athletes with DSD and LGBTQI+ athletes. Caster and her wife Violet Raseboya have two children together. Check out Caster’s memoir and follow her on Instagram.
Brittney Griner (she/her) is a Women’s National Basketball Association star and two-time Olympic gold medalist with the U.S. women’s national basketball team. She has contributed greatly to LGBTQ+ through philanthropy and advocacy. In February 2022, Brittney was arrested and wrongfully jailed in Russia for alleged possession of cannabis oil. The LGBTQ+ fraternity, together with the WNBA, fought for her freedom until she was returned home to her loved ones in December 2022. Learn more about Brittney and follow her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Three Black LGBTQ+ Poets You Should Know
Juliana Huxtable (she/her) is a writer and poet who uses diverse ways of communication to address issues of gender, race, and queerness. She uses her own body and lived experiences to challenge social norms. Her series Seven Archetype (2012-13) centers around her experiences as an intersex transgender person and the cultural forces that form conceptions of gender and sexuality. Watch Juliana’s Artist Talk and follow her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter/X.
Danez Smith (they/them) is an award-winning poet and writer whose work focuses on issues around queer identity and race. In their book “Don’t Call Us Dead,” Danez centers their queerness, Blackness, and HIV status. They were the first nonbinary poet to be nominated for the National Book Award. Follow Danez on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter/X.
Assotto Saint (he/him) was a Haitian-born poet, writer, publisher, and AIDS activist. He contributed greatly to Black queer visibility in the cultural arts movement in the 1980s and early 90s. Assotto served as a role model to many people in Black gay communities who did not have a space to freely express themselves. He was recognized by the New York Foundation for Arts and awarded the James Baldwin Award from the Black Gay Leadership Forum.
Access to PrEP—without financial barriers—is essential to ending the HIV epidemic and addressing racial disparities in health care.
On March 30, 2023, a federal judge in Texas issued an order in Braidwood v. Becerra, blocking a long-standing Affordable Care Act requirement for health insurance companies to cover many preventative health care services—like HIV-prevention medication PrEP—without cost sharing.
PrEP is a drug that reduces the risk of HIV transmission by close to 100%. According to researchers at Yale and Harvard, ending the prohibition of cost sharing for PrEP will increase HIV transmission among men who have sex with men by at least 17% in the first year alone.
The CDC reported in 2019 that only 23% of people eligible for PrEP were prescribed it, and that only 8% of Black people and 14% of Latinx people eligible for PrEP received it compared to 63% of white people.
The case, now called Kennedy v. Braidwood, is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
At its core, this case is about more than just PrEP, it is a direct attack on the foundation of preventive healthcare in the United States and a key pillar of the Affordable Care Act. The preventive services mandate ensures that millions of Americans have access to critical screenings, vaccines, and treatments without financial barriers, dramatically improving public health outcomes. From HIV prevention to cancer screenings, from childhood immunizations to maternal health care, these services save lives, reduce long-term healthcare costs, and prevent the spread of disease. This case is a referendum on whether the United States will continue investing in evidence-based, cost-effective public health strategies.
Amicus Briefs
On June 17, 2023, GLAD Law and law firm Mintz filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA) and the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD) at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, urging reversal of the district court order. HIVMA and NASTAD represent thousands of healthcare providers, public officials, and policy experts with expertise in the treatment and prevention of HIV and the demographics and dynamics of the epidemic. In the brief, the experts warn that allowing the order to stand will exacerbate racial health disparities, increase new HIV diagnoses by the tens of thousands, and have devastating consequences on our efforts to end the epidemic. Learn more.
On February 25, 2025, GLAD Law, Lambda Legal, Mintz, alongside leading HIV, LGBTQ+, and healthcare organizations submitted a friend-of-the-court brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Kennedy v. Braidwood Management, Inc., urging the Court to uphold no-cost access to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and other critical preventive healthcare services. The brief highlights the devastating public health consequences of undermining access to PrEP, a medication that reduces the risk of HIV transmission by 99% when taken as prescribed. The brief, submitted on behalf of the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors and a coalition of HIV and healthcare advocates, details the indisputable medical evidence supporting PrEP and the catastrophic consequences of restricting access. Learn more.
By Mary L. Bonauto, Senior Director of Civil Rights and Legal Strategies
Twenty years ago today, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued its watershed decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, making Massachusetts the first U.S. state where same-sex couples could legally marry.
That breakthrough ruling spread joy across the state and the country and turbocharged the movement for the legal recognition of LGBTQ+ relationships, ultimately leading to the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring all 50 states to perform and recognize marriages of same-sex couples.
While it’s tempting to look back 20 years and think it was always inevitable, it’s important, especially at the challenging moment we are in, to remember that this is the anniversary of a freedom that once seemed impossible.
It took brave people challenging injustice. The seven Goodridge plaintiff couples not only challenged the law but told the stories of their relationships, their love of one another, and their desire to protect their families to the world. In the process, they, and many others with them, shared, listened, answered questions, and helped build greater understanding and inclusion of LGBTQ+ people.
It took all of us – community members, attorneys, organizers, and allies, to get us to that moment.
Often, what separates the possible and impossible is a plan.
Goodridge wasn’t the first marriage case, nor was it the end of the story.
We supported the Hawaii marriage litigation, and then our own plan began in Vermont. With co-counsel Beth Robinson and Susan Murray, we filed a marriage case, Baker v. State of Vermont, that resulted in the nation’s first ever civil union status.
We translated lessons from Vermont to reach a historic breakthrough and win the first legal marriages in the U.S. in Massachusetts.
This turning point triggered national blowback – from the President, the Congress, then Massachusetts Governor Romney, and legislative attempts to reverse the decision via constitutional amendment. Instead of getting beaten back, we built the foundation of a national movement. And we kept going.
15 years ago, Connecticut’s Supreme Court ruled for us in a 2008 marriage case co-counseled with Ken Bartschi, Karen Dowd, and Maureen Murphy, and supported the whole way by Love Makes A Family. Ben Klein’s argument for the couples led to a breakthrough ruling on the impermissibility of discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.
With longstanding state partners, GLAD worked a plan to win marriage across the New England states. Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine passed the nation’s first marriage laws in 2009, and Maine won the first ballot measure in 2012. Rhode Island’s law made it a wrap in 2013. Passing laws and ballot measures showed what the right wing feared: that people would come to see that more marriages meant more security and happiness for more families.
We took the fight national in 2009, challenging the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) on behalf of married couples in Massachusetts whose marriages were disregarded for social security and all federal benefits and responsibilities. We won the first rulings at the federal District and Court of Appeals levels with co-counsel from Jenner & Block, Foley Hoag, and Sullivan & Worcester. We won our second case in Connecticut, too, with couples from Connecticut, Vermont, and New Hampshire. These challenges and the ultimate victory against DOMA which built upon them – U.S. v. Windsor, with counsel Roberta Kaplan in the lead – set the stage for the Supreme Court marriage equality ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Mary Bonauto and Chief Justice Margaret Marshall
Alongside movement partners and courageous plaintiffs, we supported cases nationwide seeking marriage equality. We were asked to join Michigan lawyers representing April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse. By 2015, we were Supreme Court bound to argue for the equal right to marry nationwide.
To be sure, we’ve made tremendous progress for our community.
And yet, we are facing some of the fiercest anti-LGBTQ+ attacks of our lifetimes.
Some people are newly confused and have questions about our community. Consider engaging in a way that invites more conversation and not less.
To be clear, there is also a separate, enormous, coordinated effort to reverse all of the gains we’ve made since the last century on gender and sexual equality.
Our entire community faces revitalized prejudice. The tip of the spear is directed at transgender people and, outrageously, at transgender young people.
In really hard times, when the challenges feel insurmountable, it’s important to understand some of our history. There were losses on the path to victories. And those victories were never inevitable.
What helped bring about transformative change was the strength we drew from one another and growing a movement. Plus, we never quit.
At one time during the marriage equality work, 40 states had either laws, constitutional amendments, or both, that said our relationships were unworthy of recognition. In 1986, the Supreme Court upheld sodomy laws that, in some cases, subjected people to 20-year prison terms for having sex. Yet, against all odds, we overturned those laws, and we will overturn these latest anti-LGBTQ+ laws.
We will always find a path forward.
What matters is all of us, staying engaged, staying positive, and standing up for our commitment to a future of full inclusion, equality, and freedom in which people and communities thrive.
As we joyfully celebrate 20 years of marriage equality, we know we have many miles yet to go to reach that future. But as we travel, let us remember how far we’ve come as fuel for the journey. What seems impossible can be done.
Healthcare Bans are an Attack on Our Community’s Well-being, Decision-making, and Freedom
“Taking away our opportunity to help our daughter live a healthy and happy life is cruel and unfair.”
The quotes on this page are all from Florida parents GLAD represents in Doe v. Ladapo challenging a policy, first enacted by the state Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine codified in SB 254, that bans them from meeting essential healthcare needs for their transgender children. GLAD’s Senior Director of Transgender and Queer Rights, Jennifer Levi, was in federal court in Tallahassee on May 19 asking the judge to halt the ban and stop the unimaginable cruelty and distress these families face because they can’t access the healthcare they need.
In the ongoing campaign against LGBTQ+ rights, extremist forces are pushing for discriminatory legislation that specifically targets vulnerable members of our community, particularly LGBTQ+ youth and their families. One of the most alarming aspects of this campaign is the banning and, in some cases, criminalizing of safe and effective medical care for transgender youth.
“This ban puts me and other parents in the nightmare position of not being able to help our child when they need us most.”
As of May 2023, at least 19 states (Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia) have implemented these policies.
These bans disregard scientific evidence, representing an unjustified intrusion into personal and family medical decision-making. They contradict established guidelines based on extensive clinical research and are endorsed by esteemed medical associations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Doctors with expertise in treating the distress experienced by transgender youth unable to live authentically, as well as parents who witness the positive transformation in their transgender children when supported, widely criticize these bans.
“Having the resources and support to make the best decisions for our daughter’s wellbeing has been so important for our family. We just want to do what’s right for our kid.”
GLAD is challenging the bans in Florida and Alabama, arguing that they unlawfully deprive parents of their right to make decisions about their children’s medical treatment and violate the equal protection rights of transgender youth by denying them essential, doctor-recommended healthcare.
In fact, LGBTQ+ legal organizations are contesting these policies in nearly every state where they have been passed.
Encouragingly, even judges in the most conservative communities have recognized the unconstitutional nature of these bans, which infringe upon parents’ rights to make informed healthcare choices for their children and unfairly target transgender adolescents. Although litigation is ongoing, judges have issued temporary injunctions against these bans in Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, and Oklahoma and permanently blocked the ban in Arkansas.
Senior Director of Transgender and Queer Rights Jennifer Levi and Human Rights Campaign Litigation Director Cynthia Cheng-Wun Weaver
Last spring, GLAD helped secure a federal judge’s ruling in Alabama that blocked implementing the state’s criminal ban while the case moves forward. As we prepare for an anticipated trial, this injunction remains in effect.
In Florida, our motion for a preliminary injunction to halt the ban became more urgent when the state legislature passed SB 254 at the end of the session. This new law codifies the Boards of Medicine bans and adds criminal and civil penalties.
On June 6, a federal judge issued a strong ruling that blocks the enforcement of SB 254 and the Boards of Medicine rules for the plaintiff families, ensuring that their children can continue to access needed care.
The ruling also makes it clear that the law is unconstitutional and that the plaintiffs are likely to prevail once the Court issues a final ruling on the merits. It says powerfully that the ban violates parents’ rights to make medical decisions for their children and violates the equal protection rights of transgender people by denying them medically necessary, doctor-recommended healthcare.
Halting and overturning these harmful laws is crucial to safe-guarding access to essential healthcare and ensuring that parents of transgender youth can continue to provide guidance and support. It is also vital in countering the spread of misinformation, anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, and attacks on scientific knowledge and bodily autonomy, which aim to hinder progress.
“Our daughter is a happy, confident child, but this ban takes away our right to provide her with recommended healthcare.”
While LGBTQ+ community members and advocates are diligently working to halt these laws and provide support through mutual aid and information sharing, several states are also taking positive steps. As of May 2023, ten states—California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Vermont, and Washington— and the District of Columbia have enacted laws that protect transgender people’s access to healthcare. These laws include provisions to shield patients and providers from punitive measures in other states.
Additionally, bills addressing similar concerns are pending in Maine, Oregon, and elsewhere. These efforts reflect the widespread recognition of these healthcare bans for what they truly are: attacks on science, our families, our autonomy over our bodies, and our freedom and dignity. All of us — LGBTQ+ youth, adults, parents and families, supporters, and sensible policymakers — must join forces to reverse this backward trend and instead propel our nation toward greater liberation for all.
Visit www.GLAD.org for more on GLAD’s challenges to healthcare bans and other anti-LGBTQ+ laws and information on which states have passed healthcare shield laws. If you have questions about your situation or are experiencing issues with healthcare access, contact GLAD Answers.
This story was originally published in the Summer 2023 GLAD Briefs newsletter. Read more.
Lifelong LGBTQ+ Activist and GLAD Interim Executive Director Richard Burns Cites the Need for Vigilance in the Battle for Full LGBTQ+ Equality and Liberation
As GLAD prepares to begin a robust national search for the leader who will steer the organization’s next chapter, the board is pleased to bring on lifelong LGBTQ+ activist Richard Burns as Interim Executive Director. Richard began his tenure on October 10.
“Leadership transitions are important milestones in any organization at any time,” says GLAD Board President Shane Dunn. “When the rights of LGBTQ+ people, and especially transgender people, are so virulently under attack across the country, and threats to our democracy are creating new barriers to our mission of realizing LGBTQ+, racial, HIV, and gender justice, we recognize an even greater responsibility to be thorough and thoughtful in this process.”
“We must have a commitment to vigilance, always. The battle for LGBTQ+ equality and liberation will go on for generations. We have to have heart. We have to have grit. We have to have resilience and hope.”
Richard Burns
“With significant leadership experience, including multiple tenures as an interim Executive Director, and a deep commitment to GLAD’s goals as an anti-racist, intergenerational legal advocacy organization, Richard will be able to support GLAD’s ongoing critical work with minimal disruption, allowing us the time to develop a careful search process and a diverse, talented, and passionate candidate pool for GLAD’s next permanent Executive Director,” Dunn adds.
Richard’s passion for justice and commitment to advancing equality has led him from Boston to New York and across the country as an advocate and organizational leader. He served more than twenty years as Executive Director of the New York City Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center beginning at the height of the AIDS crisis, and later developed and led the LGBT Leadership Initiative previously housed at the Arcus Foundation.
In recent years, he has effectively steered several social and racial justice-focused organizations through transition periods as an interim ED, including the Drug Policy Alliance, the North Star Fund, the Funding Exchange, Funders for LGBTQ Issues, the Stonewall Community Foundation, Lambda Legal, and, most recently the Johnson Family Foundation.
But “Boston formed me,” Richard says, speaking of his roots in the LGBTQ+ legal advocacy movement and, specifically, with GLAD.
In addition to co-founding the Massachusetts LGBTQ+ Bar Association and the Boston Lesbian & Gay Policy Alliance in 1982, he was president of GLAD’s founding board from 1978-1986 and has maintained his commitment to the organization for 45 years.
He talks of GLAD’s radical founding by John Ward at a time when movements for LGBTQ+, racial, and gender justice were converging, and new organizations began to spring up together to advance liberation for all people. On his first day of law school at Northeastern in 1980, Richard met the late Urvashi Vaid – long-time LGBTQ+ activist and a former GLAD Spirit of Justice honoree – who would become a lifelong friend, a GLAD colleague as an early legal intern, and an inspiration in conceptualizing revolutionary, inclusive queer liberation. Richard is chair of the founding Board of the American LGBTQ+ Museum, an in-development project co-founded by Urvashi, among others, to preserve, research, and share LGBTQ+ history and culture.
Kevin Cathcart, Richard Burns & Urvashi Vaid in front of Spiritus in Provincetown, late 1990’s
In the late 1970s, Richard was managing editor of the Boston-based national feminist, progressive LGBTQ+ newsweekly Gay Community News (GCN), which both chronicled and shaped intersectional queer activism at the time. GCN had an active early prison pen pal program, and Richard was a plaintiff in a successful lawsuit when the U.S. Bureau of Prisons declared GCN and another publication, the Task Force’s It’s Time, obscene and tried to block distribution to incarcerated individuals.
Richard also has the rare distinction of involvement with all three of our major LGBTQ+ legal organizations. In addition to his founding role with GLAD, Richard clerked at the National Center for Lesbian Rights while in law school and served on the board of Lambda Legal beginning in 1980.
In preparing to take on the Interim Director role at GLAD at this pivotal moment, Richard is clear that we must take lessons both from the early days of LGBTQ+ and AIDS activism and draw on the wisdom of today’s justice fighters – working with, and learning from, all movements for liberation.
“We all bring all of our identities with us everywhere. In order to build a just society, we’ve got to take into account all of our collective identities. We can’t leave anyone behind,” Richard says.
Recognizing that the far right has all of us in its sights–our movements for reproductive justice, racial equity, LGBTQ+ liberation, and beyond – he adds:
“We must have a commitment to vigilance, always. The battle for LGBTQ+ equality and liberation will go on for generations. We have to have heart. We have to have grit. We have to have resilience and hope.”
Opportunities to Meet GLAD’s Interim Executive Director:
Wednesday,October 25: Defining Gay Community News
Richard Burns will moderate a panel celebrating the 50th anniversary of Gay Community News on Wednesday, October 25, 6 p.m., at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Visit the History Project for details.
Thursday, November 9: Spirit of Justice
Richard will speak at our annual Spirit of Justice Award Dinner. Visit www.GLAD.org/SOJ to join us.
This story was originally published in the Fall 2023 GLAD Briefs Newsletter. Read more.
Far-right attacks are putting transgender youth and their families directly in harm’s way and putting all of us at risk. We are fighting back.
We all deserve to live and love freely and be supported and celebrated for who we are. The current onslaught of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation is taking aim at those fundamental ideals, with devastating consequences for children, families, and all of us.
Since 2021, 22 states have passed transgender healthcare bans and 23 states have barred transgender kids as young as elementary school from playing school sports. Multiple states have passed some version of a “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” law censoring teachers, schools, and students. Others have made it impossible for transgender and gender-diverse students to use the restroom at school.
A handful of states now require schools to out students to parents, a policy far-right groups are pushing for in the courts and local communities as well. Such policies interfere with teachers’ ability to support their students and to help ensure parents have the resources they need to support their LGBTQ+ children.
“We will support these parents and their kids in pushing back against that dangerous reality on every level.
– Jennifer Levi, Senior Director of Transgender and Queer Rights
States are trying to ban drag shows and keep books about LGBTQ+ families out of school libraries.
The far right is advancing its anti-democratic agenda on the backs of transgender and LGBQ+ youth and adults. Fortunately, those of us who believe in freedom and our common humanity are fighting back.
GLAD is in the thick of the fight, directly challenging laws in Alabama, Florida, and New Hampshire, and supporting our partner organizations in other legal battles across the country.
In Alabama, we are challenging the criminal ban on medical care for transgender adolescents.
Last year, we presented two days of testimony in federal court from medical and scientific experts, transgender adolescents, and their parents. The Court concluded, as every other district court judge across the country to hear the facts since has, that there is no justifiable reason for the state to categorically ban access to safe, established, and necessary medical care simply because someone is transgender.
A panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals recently reversed the district court’s ruling. We are asking the full 11th Circuit to reconsider the panel opinion and preserve the injunction barring the law from being enforced.
In Florida, where another district court also preliminarily blocked a law banning care for transgender adolescents, we are preparing for a full trial this December. We are also challenging restrictions put on transgender adults’ ability to obtain gender transition-related health care.
These laws target transgender people and put parents in the excruciating position of not being able to provide their adolescent children with the care they know they need to thrive.
As Jennifer Levi, Senior Director of Transgender and Queer Rights and GLAD’s lead attorney in Alabama and Florida put it: “We will support these parents and their kids in pushing back against that dangerous reality on every level.”
In New Hampshire, we are challenging a school censorship law that chills teachers’ ability to talk to students honestly about race, disability, and LGBTQ+ identities.
Senior Director of Transgender and Queer Rights Jennifer Levi and Human Rights Campaign Litigation Director Cynthia Cheng-Wun Weaver
Throughout New England we have worked overtime the past three sessions to stop the same harmful anti-LGBTQ+ bills we are seeing across the country.
That includes successfully defeating a bill last year that would have reversed New Hampshire’s ban on the debunked and dangerous practice of so-called conversion therapy. An attempt to challenge another state’s conversion therapy ban is pending consideration at the U.S. Supreme Court.
It can sometimes feel like these attacks came out of nowhere. But we know better. Our community has made tremendous progress over the past 20 years and the right is trying hard to reverse that.
Two decades ago, we began to see states passing express protections against discrimination for transgender people. Today, nearly half the states have such laws on the books.
We are fighting for our freedom, for our right to be ourselves, to live and love fully, and to celebrate our shared humanity. It’s a fight we can’t afford to lose.
Legal victories, educational research, and community advocacy have brought schools to a place of deeper understanding about the importance and fairness of supporting transgender students to express themselves and be respected for who they are.
The medical community has developed policies and practices to make safe and effective treatments for gender dysphoria more accessible. More and more families have the tools to understand and support their transgender children.
In 2020, the Supreme Court affirmed that discrimination on the basis of transgender status and sexual orientation is unlawful under federal law. And earlier this year, the Supreme Court declined to review a landmark ruling from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirming that the Americans with Disabilities Act protects transgender people from disability discrimination.
Increased visibility and understanding of our lives and increased legal protections have all made it more possible for transgender and LGBQ+ people to fully participate in civic life – to live and love freely, to be embraced by families and integrated fully into our communities.
Now, a deliberate effort by influential politically motivated actors seeks to replace our shared humanity with fear and disinformation.
Our power lies in collective action—advocating in courts and in legislatures, and engaging at the ballot box, in grassroots activism, and in everyday conversations.
And the good news is – even now – when we fight, we can win.
Over 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced across the country this year – and the vast, vast majority of those were defeated. When federal courts have had the chance to hear our full arguments and truly understand the impact of these laws on people’s lives, we’ve won. Far too many hostile bills have passed, to be sure. But we also can’t lose sight of how many we have defeated.
And while it sometimes seems like we are exclusively playing defense, we are also still advancing laws to protect our community.
This year, Michigan became the 23rd state, along with DC and the U.S. Virgin Islands, to provide comprehensive nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people.
15 states have adopted “provider shield laws” that protect access to medical care for transgender people – GLAD worked with state partners to pass such laws in Massachusetts and Vermont, with more to come.
In Maine this year we helped pass a law that creates a pathway for 16- and 17-year-old transgender adolescents to get medical care in the extraordinary circumstances where a parent objects to care even though denying it results in harm.
Those who want to move us backward and put our community in harm’s way have a lot of power and resources, it’s true. We have our work cut out for us, and we know we won’t win every fight. But we are fighting for our freedom, for our right to be ourselves, to live and love fully, and to celebrate our shared humanity.
That’s a fight we can’t afford to lose.
This story was originally published in the Fall 2023 GLAD Briefs Newsletter. Read more.
All students deserve to feel safe and included at school and have an educational environment that welcomes and affirms their full identities.
Research demonstrates that such positive school climates are necessary for all youth to learn and thrive. For many LGBTQ+ students, this journey includes sharing their identity with their friends or a trusted teacher before they’re ready to do so at home. While most youth want to and do come out to their family in their own time, some are losing that choice. Far-right legal groups are challenging these positive school policies, and some states are enacting laws that would force faculty to contact students’ homes before the students are ready, under the guise of “parents’ rights.”
The past few years of intense political scrutiny and legislative attacks have taken a toll on young people’s mental health and led to trans and LGBQ youth experiencing increased harassment. And so-called “parents’ rights” bills have made it less safe for young people who can’t be their authentic selves with their families. Teachers care about their students and know that generally, kids do better when they can talk to their parents. But sadly, that’s not an option for some youth, leading them to feel isolated both at home and school. But we are fighting to protect all youth, whether they cannot come out at home or need support to discuss their identities with their parents when they are ready.
These “forced outing” bills directly contradict schools’ responsibility to create a supportive educational environment. Federal constitutional protections and many state-based laws are in place to safeguard the rights of LGBTQ+ students. Nevertheless, even in states with explicit obligations to protect LGBTQ+ youth, a vocal minority is attempting to deny young people the autonomy to choose when and how to share their identities with their families.
In September, The First Circuit Court of Appeals heard Foote v. Town of Ludlow, which centers on this issue. We submitted a friend-of-the-court brief with the Massachusetts Superintendent’s Association, sharing research that shows positive school climates and trusted relationships with adults are critical to academic success for all students.
“When teachers and other educators acknowledge and respect students, including their requested names and pronouns, that creates the safety that allows brain development and learning to flourish while also meeting the requirement of equal educational opportunity,” said Mary Bonauto, Senior Director of Civil Rights and Legal Strategies, at the filing.
GLAD is committed to protecting students and ensuring schools can create positive, inclusive learning environments. But parents and allies can make an impact too.
In addition to supporting GLAD in this crucial work, you can advocate for the LGBTQ+ youth in your life by checking out our website’s school resources page. You’ll find information on LGBTQ+ student rights, bullying protections, and guidance for schools in every New England state and across the country. We’ve also included resources from our partners on inclusion for transgender students in school sports and all areas of academic life, how to advocate for positive school climates, resources for educators, and more.
Familiarizing yourself with these resources can help you advocate for youth and encourage schools to meet their responsibility to ensure equal education and safety for all students. Public schools and many private schools are legally obligated to act when students face bullying and other kinds of mistreatment or harassment so that all students can learn and thrive.
If you need further support, GLAD Answers can provide free and confidential legal information and assistance.
This story was originally published in the Fall 2023 GLAD Briefs Newsletter. Read more.
Celebrating 20 Years Since Goodridge v. DPH Brought the Freedom to Marry to Massachusetts, and Eventually the Nation
An excerpt of this article appears in the November/December 2023 issue of Boston Spirit.
Twenty years ago, on November 18, 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court broke the historic barrier on LGBTQ+ people marrying in its landmark Goodridge v. Department of Public Health decision – making Massachusetts the first state to rule that the freedom to marry, or not, must be equally applicable to LGBTQ+ people. This ruling required opening the door to legal marriages in six months’ time.
In the words ofChief Justice Margaret H. Marshall’s majority opinion, “The Massachusetts Constitution affirms the dignity and equality of all Individuals. It forbids the creation of second-class citizens.” This celebration of the commitment, intimacy, family, and mutuality in marriage continues to be quoted in wedding celebrations in Massachusetts and worldwide.
GLAD filed Goodridge in April 2001 on behalf of 7 couples seeking something both simple and profound: constitutional respect for their personal commitment by ending the exclusion on joining in legal marriage and marriage’s protections, rights, and responsibilities.
With tremendous gratitude and in recognition of their momentous impact on our community, state, and nation, we were thrilled to celebrate the Goodridge plaintiffs as the 2023 Spirit of Justice Award Honorees at GLAD’s Spirit of Justice Dinner.
We honored Gloria Bailey-Davies, Linda Bailey-Davies, Edward Balmelli, Maureen Brodoff, Gary Chalmers, Rob Compton, Hillary Goodridge, Julie Goodridge, Michael Horgan, Richard Linnell, Gina Nortonsmith, Heidi Nortonsmith, Ellen Wade, and David Wilson.
Each of them authentically gave of themselves and created connections and bridges of understanding with the wider community even while in a crucible of media and political attention and conflict. They advanced equal rights for all of us in Massachusetts and that beacon of hope spread far and wide. With other marriage plaintiffs, including in challenges in Hawaii and Vermont before Goodridge, and cases across the country after, the Goodridge plaintiffs’ full and complete victory paved the way for more.
Goodridge plaintiffs at the 2013 Spirit of Justice Award Dinner with Honoree Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall and Mary Bonauto
The reality of people’s marriages in Massachusetts set the stage for dismantling the federal Defense of Marriage Act – first in GLAD’s 2009 challenge in federal court and 2012 unanimous victory at the First Circuit Court of Appeals, and then carried through by other plaintiffs at the Supreme Court in 2013. Community members and organizations, including GLAD, worked together in legislatures and courts across the U.S. In 2013, GLAD was asked to join the team representing plaintiffs in Michigan, in the case that would lead to the Supreme Court Obergefell ruling for marriage equality nationwide in 2015.
Looking back now, it can be tempting to think this was all inevitable. But that is far from true.
It took relentless hard work, commitment, and courage from the 14 plaintiffs, attorneys, amici and their attorneys, and so many others. The Goodridge plaintiffs withstood a trial court loss – expected but still disappointing – and redoubled their efforts to connect with people about why marriage was important to them.
Victory was sweet. The Supreme Judicial Court’s (SJC) beautiful and momentous ruling on November 18, 2003, was a triumph. Even so, it wasn’t the end. The reactions were swift – both the eruption of joy and celebration and also the backlash.
At the same time, the legislature, meeting in a constitutional convention, debated whether to constitutionally ban marriage for same-sex couples or to defend the court’s ruling.
“I stand with the SJC” stickers were everywhere, along with throngs of supporters and opponents inside and outside the State House.
Amidst all of this, couples acted on the simple desire to protect their, in some cases, decades-long love and commitment, and planned wedding celebrations.
Finally, May 17, 2004, dawned with early morning talk shows and LGBTQ+ people and allies supporting couples seeking to marry in cities and towns across the Commonwealth.
“The Massachusetts Constitution affirms the dignity and equality of all Individuals. It forbids the creation of second-class citizens.”
– Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall
The joy was palpable as Massachusetts, with the eyes of the nation on us, inaugurated the first legally-recognized marriages of same-sex couples in the country.
And still, there was work to do. There were multiple more constitutional convention sessions and lawsuits about required procedures. Most importantly, the people of the Commonwealth were engaged with their elected officials, neighbors, and family members.
Finally, the legislature conclusively rejected the last proposed constitutional amendment in June 2007 with over ¾ of the vote of the House and Senate. The Commonwealth had taken a cue from the Goodridge plaintiffs in finding common ground and our common humanity.
It was official – marriage equality was now here to stay in Massachusetts.
The legal victory and the incredible defense mounted by everyday people in Massachusetts to protect it created momentum for equality, but national progress was still infuriatingly slow.
Politicians seeking to create fear and win power seized on our community’s fight for basic dignity and human rights – something we are seeing again today. State laws were changed to ban marriage and cut off any legal protections for a couple’s relationship. Hostile politicians drove a wave of constitutional amendments across the country.
It wasn’t until 2008 that GLAD secured the next lasting court victory, at the Connecticut Supreme Court in Kerrigan and Mock v. Dept. of Public Health.We will be celebrating 15 years of marriage in Connecticut on November 12, just before the 20th anniversary of Goodridge.
After Connecticut, we began to see more state court, legislative, and ballot victories for the freedom to marry.
Crucial legislative victories for marriage equality in the New England States of Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire proved that we could make change in the democratic process and not only the courts. We had to go back to the ballot in Maine in 2012, which then became the first state to win marriage by popular vote of the people. And in early 2013, our campaign in New England concluded with Rhode Island’s marriage enactment.
Slowly but increasingly perceptibly, more and more of the public were coming to engage the possibility of, and then embracing, the dignity and equality of LGBTQ+ individuals and our relationships.
The journey from a state constitutional law case in Massachusetts to the national marriage victory in Obergefell v. Hodges at the Supreme Court in 2015 results from the changed minds, hard work, courage, resilience, and persistence of so many across society and law. As queer historian George Chauncey has put it though, there would be no Obergefell without Goodridge, and we happily celebrate the 14 trailblazing plaintiffs who led the way.
Cementing Dignity and Equality in Federal Law
Signing ceremony at the White House
In June 2022, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas called for reconsideration of Obergefell – and other key cases protecting individual freedoms – in his concurrence in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health ruling that overturned 50 years of precedent on abortion rights. It was neither the first nor the last time we’ve seen direct threats to marriage equality, but it spurred action years in the making to require state and federal recognition of people’s marriages and forbid discrimination based on the sex, race, or ethnicity of the spouses. With bipartisan support, President Biden signed the federal “Respect for Marriage Act” in December 2022 to provide LGBTQ+ families and others across the country with the assurance that their marriages will continue to be respected by our state and federal governments.
“It takes the efforts of many to bend the arc of history toward justice… Even now there are so many places where people in our community are under attack. The work will continue, but look how far we’ve come.”
– Goodridge plaintiff Heidi Nortonsmith
We are alert to efforts to chip away at civil marriage equality and the equal status of LGBTQ+ people more broadly. This includes creating speech and religious objections to the basic rules of equal treatment, as in this summer’s narrow but alarming Supreme Court 303 Creative ruling and others. We also see it in the widespread state legislative threats to LGBTQ+ people’s making any claims to basic human or legal respect, whether in schools, healthcare settings, the public marketplace, and other areas of daily life. Our community is working overtime to defend and protect one another and affirm what we know is true and right in these extremely challenging times.
While this fight is hard, we know we can fight through losses and gaps in public understanding, as we have with marriage, with laws criminalizing intimacy, with our community’s response to the HIV epidemic, and with two decades of advances in the rights of transgender people, who are now facing devastating backlash. It is never easy or immediate, but when we work together from a place of love and commitment for the long term, we win.
“It takes the efforts of many to bend the arc of history toward justice,”Goodridge plaintiff Heidi Nortonsmith said at the White House signing ceremony for the Respect for Marriage Act. “Even now there are so many places where people in our community are under attack. The work will continue, but look how far we’ve come. The law that President Biden signs today will make people safer, more secure, and less alone. From our family to all of you, thank you for fighting for our equal humanity and dignity. For our right to love and be loved. And for our marriage.”
Unfinished Business: Ensuring Protections for Our Families
MA parent Kam and her son
Today Massachusetts is proud of its leadership on marriage equality, and rightly so. But twenty years after the landmark Goodridge ruling, the state has unfinished business to ensure LGBTQ+ families – including our children – are fully protected by connecting them legally with their parents. Massachusetts’ statutes on establishing parentage – the legal relationship between a child and their parents – remain decades out of date. As a result, children born to LGBTQ+ families and other children born with the aid of assisted reproduction are left vulnerable, without the security of the law recognizing their relationship to their parents. We need the legislature to act this year to pass the Massachusetts Parentage Act to provide a statutory roadmap that equally protects all families.
This story was originally published in the Fall 2023 GLAD Briefs Newsletter. Read more.
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