Today is LGBTQ Advocacy Day in New York. It’s a day when people from every corner of the state travel to Albany to speak face-to-face with their representatives in order to educate and advocate. And LGBTQ people know from experience that this pressure makes a difference.
This year is already historic for LGBTQ people in New York. In January, both chambers of the Legislature finally passed GENDA—a measure to protect transgender and gender non-conforming people from discrimination statewide. Passage was a victory some seventeen years in the making. It took aggressive and sustained advocacy from community members, particularly transgender New Yorkers, and allies in order to achieve the most basic protections.
