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OutRight Action International announces new executive director

Maria Sjödin to succeed Jessica Stern

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OutRight Action International Executive Director Maria Sjödin. (Photo by Carlos Alayo/carlosalayo.com)

OutRight Action International on Thursday announced it has named Maria Sjödin as its next executive director.

Sjödin was executive director of RSFL, the largest LGBTQ and intersex rights organization in Sweden, from 2005-2014. Sjödin had been OutRight Action International’s acting executive director since last September.

They will succeed Jessica Stern, who President Joe Biden in June 2021 named as special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights abroad.

“I’m super honored and couldn’t be more excited to carry on the work that we’re doing at OutRight at the moment,” Sjödin told the Washington Blade on Wednesday during an exclusive interview. “I’m super grateful and extremely happy.”

Julie Dorf, who is now a senior advisor for the Center for Global Equality, founded the group that is now OutRight Action International in 1990. 

Sjödin noted OutRight Action International, which has staff in 12 countries and works with advocacy groups in many others, is the world’s largest LGBTQ and intersex rights organization. OutRight Action International is the only LGBTQ- and intersex-specific organization with a permanent presence at the U.N. 

OutRight Action International earlier this year launched LBQ Connect, a program that seeks to bolster the work of activists who identify as lesbian, bisexual or queer women. Sjödin said they plan to continue this initiative as executive director.

“Over the length of my activism, I have often heard LGBTQ women say, you know, we feel invisible, we’re not seen, and we don’t have enough resources,” they told the Blade. “And LBQ connect, has been developed in response to that.”

Sjödin said there “has been an enormous progress in a lot of different countries” over the more than two decades they have been in the LGBTQ and intersex rights movement. Sjödin also acknowledged “there’s still a very long way to go.”

“It takes a long time to create the type of change that we need to see,” they said. “There’s a significant pushback from those who don’t believe that we should have rights.”

Sjödin in response to the Blade’s question about the challenges that LGBTQ and intersex people continue to face said anti-transgender rhetoric has “spread as a wildfire.” They also cited the legacy of colonial-era laws that criminalized LGBTQ and intersex people and the reaction to the monkeypox outbreak.

“It starts with the fact that the colonial powers put in place laws around the world that criminalize primarily same sex relations, but in many other cases there are restrictions on gender expressions and gender identities … there is a long history of homophobia and transphobia,” said Sjödin. “We see it right now with the outbreak of monkeypox. As soon as we heard about the first cases of monkeypox, we knew that okay, soon the leaders are going to come out and blame LGBTIQ people. And just like that it happens again.”

“LGBTIQ people and LGBTIQ communities get blamed for all kinds of things and are used as scapegoats when leaders want to, often I guess, divert attention from their own failings and just push the idea that somehow LGBITQ people are to blame,” they added.

Sjödin also said “some people seem to think that progress is kind of linear and … things that we can take for granted now are things that we can always take for granted.”

They spoke with the Blade less than two months after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. 

Justice Clarence Thomas in his concurrent opinion said the Supreme Court should reconsider the decisions in the Obergefell and Lawrence cases that extended marriage equality to same-sex couples and the right to private, consensual sex. 

“There can be enormous and very dangerous rollback of rights that had already been won,” said Sjödin.

Sjödin in response to the Blade’s question about the Biden administration’s support of LGBTQ and intersex rights around the world stressed it “is critical that governments take a stand and promote human rights for LGBTIQ people around the world.”

“The U.S. has an outsized influence on the world, so when it’s on the agenda of the administration it does make a big difference,” said Sjödin.

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LGBTQ groups call for removal of Okla. education official and federal probe

More than 350 organizations, public figures signed letter

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Nex (Dagny) Benedict, a 16-year-old nonbinary student from Oklahoma, died on Feb. 8 after a fight at their high school. (Family photo)

A coalition of more than 350 advocacy groups issued a letter on Wednesday calling for the removal of Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters along with a federal investigation into the “actions and policies” by the Oklahoma Department of Education that have facilitated a “culture where rampant harassment of 2SLGBTQI+ students has been allowed to go unchecked.”

The letter comes as the death of nonbinary teenager Nex Benedict earlier this month, a day after they were allegedly assaulted in a school restroom and after enduring months of bullying, has drawn national attention to, and scrutiny of, the state’s policies targeting the rights of LGBTQ Oklahomans, particularly youth.

An investigation into the circumstances surrounding Benedict’s death is ongoing. LGBTQ advocates including Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson have called for independent probes by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education.

“Superintendent Ryan Walters is responsible for fostering a culture of violence and hate,” the letter argues. “Just a month ago, he passed an emergency rule to prevent an Oklahoma teen who was fearful of being bullied from changing his gender on school files,” and he also “called for the firing of a principal who performed in drag on weekends, which led to violent threats against the educator.”

Additionally, the letter notes, Walters appointed anti-transgender activist Chaya Raichik, creator of the anti-LGBTQ social media account Libs of TikTok, to serve on the Oklahoma library board “despite her not living in Oklahoma and having no credentials for the position.” 

Per a press release from GLAAD, “Signers span Oklahoma-specific civil rights groups, churches and faith denominations, legal groups and unions, and more, to national education and youth advocacy groups, civil rights organizations, women’s rights leaders and equality groups in neighboring states.”

Among the national nonprofit organizations are the American Association of School Librarians, the Center for American Progress, GLAAD, GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), GLSEN, HRC, the Interfaith Alliance, It Gets Better, Lambda Legal, the Matthew Shepard Foundation, the Movement Advancement Project, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the National Center for Transgender Equality, the National Education Association, the National LGBTQ Task Force, the National Women’s Law Center, PFLAG National, the Rainbow Youth Project USA, the Trevor Project and the Transgender Law Center.

The release notes they were joined by public figures who include Kristin Chenoweth, Demi Lovato, Cynthia Nixon, Jonathan Van Ness, Tommy Dorfman, Alok, Peppermint, Emma Roberts, Amy Schneider and K.D. Lang.

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LGBTQ Non-Profit Organizations

Beverly Tillery to step down from Anti-Violence Project

Outgoing executive director has been with AVP for eight years

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Beverly Tillery (Photo by Chris Tuttle)

After eight years of serving as executive director, Beverly Tillery announced on Tuesday that she will be leaving the New York-based Anti-Violence Project, America’s largest support and advocacy organization for LGBTQ survivors of violence.

“I am so proud of the work we have done over the last eight years, years which have been some of the most difficult our community has experienced in decades,” she said in a statement. Despite the steady increase in threats since the start of her tenure, Tillery said, “we helped our communities respond to the increases in hate violence attacks and came together with other targeted communities to protect each other.”

AVP Board Chair Stephanie K. Blackwood credited Tillery with helping to grow the group into “an organization that is poised for a national role,” recognized for its “model support services to survivors and their families, innovative policy and advocacy work and impactful community organizing.”

Recent advocacy work has included educating policymakers and leaders about the escalating threats and attacks against LGBTQ spaces, following the group’s issuance of its comprehensive survey and corresponding report titled, “Under Attack: 2022 LGBTQ+ Safe Spaces National Needs Assessment.”

Tillery spoke with the Washington Blade in October about AVP’s meetings with the White House, top officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, including Adm. Rachel Levine, assistant secretary for health, and congressional offices.

The group plans to begin the search for a new executive director next month. Tillery’s last day will be July 31.

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Mayor Parker: LGBTQ elected leaders are ‘the strongest line of defense’

Outgoing Victory Fund president on her departure — and urgent need to defeat Trump

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Former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, president and CEO of the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund and LGBTQ+ Victory Institute (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The Washington Blade connected with former Houston Mayor Annise Parker last week, shortly after breaking the news of her departure from the LGBTQ Victory Fund and LGBTQ Victory Institute after six years of serving as president and CEO.

The organizations are, respectively, dedicated to increasing the number of public officeholders who are LGBTQ and providing training and resources for them, whether they are appointed or elected to the positions they hold.

Parker’s exit was planned since last July, in coordination with the boards of directors. “We worked out the timing together,” she said. “I wanted 2024 to be my last year, but I also think we all recognize the importance of this election and what’s going on politically,” and for these reasons “I wanted to [leave] in the least disruptive way possible.”

This means staying on through the end of this year, in part to assist the boards in “a thoughtful search process” for her successor.

Parker told the Blade she agreed to take the helm at Victory at a time when the organization had strong foundations but “lost its way a little bit” by straying from its “really narrow mission,” which is “to put LGBT leaders into public office.”

“In my view, one of the most important things I did was bring us back to where we started,” she said. “We’re the only national organization that only works with LGBT leaders. We love our allies and we respect our allies, but they are not our mission.”

So far this year, conservative lawmakers have proposed more than 400 bills targeting the rights of LGBTQ Americans. The moral panic stoked by the right wing against queer and especially trans people brings into sharp relief the importance of the work in which Victory is engaged, Parker said.

“Because of these ever growing attacks on our community, the need for LGBT leaders who are willing to step up and serve and run for office has never been greater,” she said. When Victory was founded “33 years ago, there were just a handful of folks; most of our community was in the closet.”

Parker remembers, “I ran for the first time in 1991, the year Victory was founded. It was a long time ago. We were pioneers. But now we are the strongest line of defense. And the barbarians are at the gate.”

Then, as now, coming out “in all aspects of our lives” is “the most powerful thing we do,” Parker said — a lesson she first learned as an activist in the 1970s. “It still matters,” she said. Candidates backed by Victory are often voters’ first exposure to gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, or genderqueer people, she noted — “and it changes hearts and minds.”

Many begin their careers in public service at school boards or other local offices, but go on to serve in progressively higher-profile roles, Parker said. She pointed to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who is gay, and served as a statewide education official before his election to the U.S. Congress and then the governorship.

The importance of local races must not be overlooked, Parker stressed. To take the example of school boards, she said, “folks on the other side” like the anti-LGBTQ extremist group Moms for Liberty are “targeting school boards for the same reasons that Victory works in school boards.” So, “we need to be where our enemies are.”

Opponents of LGBTQ rights “see what’s happening demographically, in terms of changing attitudes, about all sorts of things — including the LGBT community,” and while “we have won this war,” generationally speaking with increased acceptance, Parker warned that “we can still lose a whole lot of battles.”

“These overt attacks, you know, they didn’t have to attack us 30 years ago in the same way, because we had no protections,” Parker said. “This is part of the backlash for all of the successes that we’ve had.”

An example of that success: “There is no place in America,” she said, “that is not accessible to the right LGBT candidates with the right mix of ideas and energy and insights for that district to win.”

Parker added, “And part of the reason that we push so hard for our trans candidates that we work with, is that they’re the tip of the spear right now. They’re the ones that are the target of the attacks.”

At the same time, she is clear-eyed about the threat presented by the presumptive Republican nominee for president.

“What keeps me awake is the idea that Donald Trump could again become the president of the United States,” Parker said. “That is horrifying. And I would I would willingly lose every other race to keep him away from — I mean, I just perceive him as an existential threat to democracy in America.”

Here, again, part of the bulwark against this threat will be “our candidates,” who are “mobilizing people who will be in direct opposition to the horrific vision of America that he’s pushing,” Parker said. “I absolutely believe there’s a fundamental difference between the two presidential candidates that we’re going to have. And I also believe that it’s critical for democracy not to have Donald Trump.”

The fight for bodily autonomy

The Victory Fund endorses LGBTQ candidates who are positioned to win and who also believe in bodily autonomy; the right to privacy that undergirds not only protections for LGBTQ people but also reproductive freedoms.

“When we were founded,” Parker said, the attacks on body autonomy were happening on multiple fronts, from restrictions on access to abortion to sodomy statutes that criminalized gay sex acts between consenting adults.

“All these trans issues we’re facing right now are about bodily autonomy,” she said. “We can have a legitimate argument about gender affirming care for people under 18 or even under 21, but for adults, it is about body autonomy.”

Likewise, under the right to privacy rubric, “more and more places are rethinking how we deal with those who abuse substances,” she said, adding that anyone who is LGBT has to care about a right to privacy that incorporates body autonomy.

Parker explained that “Over the years, there have been a lot of men that I’ve talked to who asked the same question, ‘Well, why do you have to be pro choice?’ Our candidates don’t have to believe in or want to support abortion, but they must believe that every human being has the right to body autonomy, because they demand it for themselves.”

As a result, and because of the Republican Party’s hostility toward reproductive freedom and the rights of trans people, Parker said “it is really challenging to find Republican candidates” who qualify under the criteria for Victory Fund as an endorsing PAC.

Most conservative candidates who object to the criteria about abortion “also have problems with the fact that we are fully supportive of the trans community,” she said.

Feeding the pipeline

Asked about plans for Victory following her departure, Parker said there are concrete goals and metrics that were established in the organizations’ five-year strategic plan, among them, building a roster of “LGBT candidates who are ready for the presidential stage.”

The Victory Fund endorsed former South Bend, Ind., mayor and current U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s presidential run in 2020 — but even though he was the only LGBTQ candidate, the endorsement was hardly a foregone conclusion.

“I am a huge Pete Buttigieg fan,” Parker said. “I think he’s got mad political skills,” but at the same time, she hedged, “when you think of presidential candidates, you think of governors” or folks who are well known on the national stage, often with many years of service in public office.

“From the first notice to his first announcement, we waited six months because — and I had the conversation with him — you have to poll consistently; you have to be competitive financially; and show you can place in these primaries,” Parker said. “And he did.”

The Transportation Secretary has “superb political instincts,” she said. “He is brilliant. He has the ability to connect to people. And he thinks really strategically.” Parker added that she expects to be able to vote for him again.

Also in Victory’s roster of potential presidential candidates are “three governors and a former governor, Kate Brown” along with “other statewide elected officials — so we have two attorneys general, two United States senators,” and “big city mayors; I’m a former big city mayor,” and then “you have [San Diego Mayor] Todd Gloria and [former Chicago Mayor] Lori Lightfoot.”

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