Category: Black Lives Matter

By Michelle Zaludek, OUTLaw President

My Grandma used to tell me, “I don’t have a problem with gay people, I just wish they wouldn’t be so in-your-face about it.”

That was her code, you know?  Her not-so-secret approach to say how she felt in the most palatable way she thought possible.  To tell me, without actually having to tell me, “Gay people are fine if they’re over there.” 

I used to bite the insides of my cheeks until they bled.  I didn’t know how to tell my family that what they wanted over there had been here for a very long time.  So, I hid it.  I denied it.  I hated myself for it. 

When I came out to my parents as bisexual, I got a question: “We love you—but you’re still going to marry a man, right?”

It was more code.  In short: Being gay over here is fine if it doesn’t really change things.

I’m incredibly privileged and lucky to be able to say that my family’s opinions changed.  I feel loved, respected, and supported by them.  That doesn’t always happen. 

It doesn’t help that our victories for civil rights are still fresh.  After all, it has only been twenty-four years since the Supreme Court held that laws couldn’t purposefully take away rights from the LGBTQ+ community.  Seventeen years since the Court held that laws criminalizing sexual conduct between consenting adults of the same sex are unconstitutional.  Five years since it held that same-sex couples can marry.  And less than a month since it held that the LGBTQ+ community is protected from workplace discrimination.

And, consistently, members of the LGBTQ+ community are still disproportionately affected by poverty, health insecurity, harassment, and violence, which is severely amplified for LGBTQ+ People of Color.

In 2020 alone, at least fifteen Transgender or Gender Nonconforming people in the U.S. and its territories have been murdered.  The vast majority were Black and Latinx Trans women.  Both Pride and the Black Lives Matter movement have taught us to say the names of victims in our communities—to remember who we’re fighting for.  We have an incredible opportunity and responsibility to advocate for justice as members of the legal community.  Research LGBTQ+ issues.  Reach out to your friends and family in the community.  Get up.  Change things.  Say their names. 

Dustin Parker; Nuelisa Luciano Ruiz; Yampi Méndez Arocho; Monika Diamond; Lexi; Johanna Metzger; Serena Angelique Velázquez Ramos; Layla Pelaez Sánchez; Penélope Díaz Ramírez; Nina Pop; Helle Jae O’Regan; Tony McDade; Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells; Riah Milton; Jayne Thompson; Selena Reyes-Hernandez.

Local LGBTQ+ Organizations to Support

• In Our Own Voices
• Pride Center of the Capital Region
• Rainbow Access Initiative
• Albany Damien Center
• Capital Pride Singers
• GLSEN NY Capital Region