The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ rights organization, receives LGBTQ equality messages on the streets, especially in the Red State, with a diversity tour focused on changing more minds and minds.
The “American Dream Tour” begins Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio, and travels to Republican-led state cities until November. According to the HRC, the tour’s goal is to amplify the story of LGBTQ people “in an age of increased political attacks and cultural elimination,” and “celebrate communities that fight back and forth for an equal future for all.”
“For half a century, our movement has changed hearts and hearts with our stories — trans young people and parents arrive in houses in states across the country. “We are traveling to places where harm is happening, and places where hope is rising. We are manifesting in communities where they say they don’t belong and remind us that they are American dreams.”
This tour will be “anchored” in six major cities (Columbus). Las Vegas; Washington, DC; Dallas; Atlanta; Nashville, Tennessee — there are other stops to be announced in the coming weeks. Each stop is tailored to the problems that strange people face in those particular areas. Columbus Stop, for example, will focus on “the legacy of LGBTQ+ activism in Ohio, facing the legacy of LGBTQ+ activism in Ohio and the barriers to HIV care.”
The American Dreams Tour is a period of uncertainty in LGBTQ rights, especially trans rights. So far, nearly 600 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in houses across the United States, according to a tally by the American Civil Liberties Union. A report released last week by LGBTQ advocacy group Glaad claimed that 300 anti-LGBTQ actions had come from the Trump administration since January. An NBC News analysis published in February found that lawmakers from at least nine states recently introduced measures to remove the rights to marriage for same-sex couples.
“For the first time in decades, we’ve actually seen backslides of LGBTQ+ rights across the country. We have to do something,” Robinson said in an interview with MSNBC on Monday. “We have to go back to the basics when we tell stories and meet where people are because when we tell stories we not only change our minds and hearts, but also change the way people act, what they advocate in their communities.”
